able impulse to
withhold it. And I--if I had power to give, if I ever possessed money,
it should be to give, give freely and without conditions to those who
needed it.

Perhaps my father guessed what I was thinking of. At any rate, he
recommenced the conversation by saying--

"You have had a great deal done for you, Victor, though you may
consider yourself very ill-used. You had a most expensive education.
Then you passed into the army--brilliantly, I admit, but you were aided
in every possible way. Then you had a fancy to go to India. Well, I got
your regiment changed, and you went. Six months after you write that
you have determined to become an author. I assent to that, much against
my judgment, and you send in your papers. Good. What have you done
since then? Nothing but write things no one will print, and hang about
your cousin!"

A dull anger lit up in all my veins, and sent the blood to my head at
his words. Still, they were practically the truth, and I knew I had no
right to resent them.

"Now," he continued, "I make you a reasonable and just proposal, and
you know that it is so. I give you every opportunity to display your
talent, if you have any, which I very seriously doubt. You have leisure
and unlimited means at your disposal. I only stipulate that before I
make you independent, and before you marry, you shall give some proof
of your powers in literature. I don't say you must wait till you have
acquired a fortune. Your first production that is accepted and
acknowledged sets you free. When I see you are really on the way to a
profession, I will take care your finances don't trouble you, and as to
marriage, you can then, of course, do what you please. But as to
assisting you now to hurry into an affair that I don't under any
circumstances particularly approve of--No."

"Why don't you approve of it?" I said, with a faint smile; "if I were
in love with a housemaid or a ballet dancer I could understand your
objection, but a girl in our own rank, educated, pretty, clever--what
more would you have?"

My father shrugged his shoulders and elevated his eyebrows, and finally
answered--"I should have liked a little more sanity between you.
Remember there is insanity on her side and insanity on yours, and you
both of you seem half-cracky already, to my mind. Then you are cousins.
The relationship is near, unpleasantly near. You are both very much
alike, extremely excitable, and with both your heads stuffed full