ry her, I do a good thing--I do a just
thing. I will prove to you that I have done a wise thing.

"Let me call to your recollection what you did me the honour to remark of
my letters from Italy. Those were written with her by my side. Every
other woman vexed me. This one alone gives me peace, and nerve to work.
If I did not desire to work, should I venture to run the chances of an
offence to you? Your girls of society are tasteless to me. And they don't
makes wives to working barristers. No, nor to working Members.

"They are very ornamental and excellent, and, as I think you would call
them, accomplished. All England would leap to arms to defend their
incontestible superiority to their mothers and their duties. I have not
the wish to stand opposed to my countrymen on any question, although I go
to other shores, and may be called upon to make capital out of
opposition. They are admirable young persons, no doubt. I do not offer
you a drab for your daughter-in-law, sir. If I rise, she will be equal to
my station. She has the manners of a lady; a lady, I say; not of the
modern young lady; with whom, I am happy to think, she does not come into
competition. She has not been sedulously trained to pull her way, when
she is to go into harness with a yokefellow.

"But I am laying myself open to the charge of feeling my position weak,
seeing that I abuse the contrary one. Think what you will of me, sir, you
will know that I have obeyed my best instinct and my soundest judgement
in this matter; I need not be taught, that if it is my destiny to leave
England I lose the association with him who must ever be my dearest
friend. And few young men can say as much of one standing in the relation
of father."

With this, Edward finished; not entirely to his satisfaction; for he had
spoken with too distinct a sincerity to please his own critical taste,
which had been educated to delight in acute antithesis and culminating
sentences--the grand Biscayan billows of rhetorical utterance, in
comparison wherewith his talk was like the little chopping waves of a
wind-blown lake. But he had, as he could see, produced an impression. His
father stood up.

"We shall be always friends; I hope," Sir William said. "As regards a
provision for you, suitable to your estate, that will be arranged. You
must have what comforts you have been taught to look to. At the same
time, I claim a personal freedom for my own actions."

"Certainly, sir," said Edward