to sell. You might molest, harass, shame her, by proclaiming yourself her father; but regain her into your keeping, cast her to infamy and vice—never, never! She is now with no powerless, miserable convict, for whom Law has no respect. She is now no helpless infant, without a choice, without a will. She is safe from all save the wanton unprofitable effort to disgrace her, Oh, Jasper, Jasper, be human—she is so delicate of frame—she is so sensitive to reproach, so tremulously alive to honor—I—I am not fit to be near her now. I have been a tricksome, shifty vagrant, and innocent though I be, the felon's brand is on me! But you, you too, who never loved her, who cannot miss her, whose heart is not breaking at her loss as mine is now—you, you—to rise up from the reeking pest-house in which you have dwelt by choice, and say, 'Descend from God's day with me'—Jasper, Jasper, you will not—you cannot; it would be the malignity of a devil!"
"Father, hold!" cried Jasper, writhing and livid; "I owe to you no more than I do to that thing of pink and white. I know better than you the trumpery of all those waxen dolls of whom dupes make idols. At each turn of the street you may find them in basketfuls—blue-eyed or black-eyed, just the same worthless frippery or senseless toys; but every man dandling his own doll, whether he call it sweetheart or daughter, makes the same puling boast that he has an angel of purity in his puppet of wax. Nay, hear me! to that girl I owe nothing. You know what I owe to you. You bid me not seek her, and say, 'I am your father!' Do you think it does not misbecome me more, and can it wound you less, when I come to you, and remind you that I am your son!"
"Jasper!" faltered the old man, turning his face aside, for the touch of feeling toward himself, contrasting the cynicism with which Jasper spoke of other ties not less sacred, took the father by surprise.
"And," continued Jasper, "remembering how you once loved me—with what self-sacrifice you proved that love, it is with a bitter grudge against that girl that I see her thus take that place in your affection which was mine—and you so indignant against me if I even presume to approach her. What! I have the malignity of a devil because I would not quietly lie down in yonder kennels to starve, or sink into the grade of those whom your daintier thief disdains; spies into unguarded areas, or cowardly skulkers by blind walls; while in the paltry girl, who you say is so well provided for, I see the last and sole
