Der Praefekt

occasions.
     
    “I especially want to speak to you about my father, Mr Bold; indeed, I
    am now here on purpose to do so.  Papa is very unhappy, very unhappy
    indeed, about this affair of the hospital: you would pity him, Mr
    Bold, if you could see how wretched it has made him.”
     
    “Oh, Miss Harding!”
     
    “Indeed you would;—anyone would pity him; but a friend, an old friend
    as you are,—indeed you would.  He is an altered man; his cheerfulness
    has all gone, and his sweet temper, and his kind happy tone of voice;
    you would hardly know him if you saw him, Mr Bold, he is so much
    altered; and—and—if this goes on, he will die.”  Here Eleanor had
    recourse to her handkerchief, and so also had her auditors; but she
    plucked up her courage, and went on with her tale.  “He will break his
    heart, and die.  I am sure, Mr Bold, it was not you who wrote those
    cruel things in the newspaper—”
     
    John Bold eagerly protested that it was not, but his heart smote him
    as to his intimate alliance with Tom Towers.
     
    “No, I am sure it was not; and papa has not for a moment thought so;
    you would not be so cruel;—but it has nearly killed him.  Papa cannot
    bear to think that people should so speak of him, and that everybody
    should hear him so spoken of:—they have called him avaricious, and
    dishonest, and they say he is robbing the old men, and taking the
    money of the hospital for nothing.”
     
    “I have never said so, Miss Harding.  I—”
     
    “No,” continued Eleanor, interrupting him, for she was now in the full
    flood-tide of her eloquence; “no, I am sure you have not; but others
    have said so; and if this goes on, if such things are written again,
    it will kill papa. Oh! Mr Bold, if you only knew the state he is in!
    Now papa does not care much about money.”
     
    Both her auditors, brother and sister, assented to this, and declared
    on their own knowledge that no man lived less addicted to filthy lucre
    than the warden.
     
    “Oh! it’s so kind of you to say so, Mary, and of you too, Mr Bold.
    I couldn’t bear that people should think unjustly of papa. Haben Sie
    know he would give up the hospital altogether, only he cannot. Die
    archdeacon says it would be cowardly, and that he would be deserting
    his order, and injuring the church.  Whatever may happen, papa will
    not do that: he would leave the place to-morrow willingly, and give
    up his house, and the income and all, if the archdeacon—”
     
    Eleanor was going to say “would let him,” but she stopped herself
    before she had compromised her father’s dignity; and giving a long
    sigh, she added—“Oh, I do so wish he would.”
     
    “No one who knows Mr Harding personally accuses him for a moment,”
    said Bold.
     
    “It is he that has to bear the punishment; it is he that suffers,”
    said Eleanor; “and what for? what has he done wrong? how has he
    deserved this persecution? he that never had an unkind thought in his
    life, he that never said an unkind word!” and here she broke down, and
    the violence of her sobs stopped her utterance.
     
    Bold, for the fifth or sixth time, declared that neither he nor any of
    his friends imputed any blame personally to Mr Harding.
     
    “Then why should he be persecuted?” ejaculated Eleanor through her
    tears, forgetting in her eagerness that her intention had been to
    humble herself as a suppliant before John Bold;—“why should he be
    singled out for scorn and disgrace? why should he be made so wretched?
    Oh! Mr Bold,”—and she turned towards him as though the kneeling scene
    were about to be commenced,—“oh! Mr Bold, why did you begin all this?
    You, whom we all so—so—valued!”
     
    To speak the truth, the reformer’s punishment was certainly come upon
    him, for his present plight was not enviable; he had nothing for it
    but to excuse himself by platitudes about public duty, which it is
    by no means worth while to repeat, and to reiterate his eulogy on Mr
    Harding’s character.  His position was certainly a cruel one: had any
    gentleman called upon him on behalf of Mr Harding he could of course
    have declined to enter upon the subject; but how could he do so with a
    beautiful girl, with the daughter of the man whom he had injured, with
    his own love?
     
    In the meantime Eleanor recollected herself, and again summoned up
    her energies.  “Mr Bold,” said she, “I have come here to implore you
    to abandon this proceeding.”  He stood up