ces of other days shook him to the heart?

"You have spoken, Clara, as you should not have spoken," he went on,
without looking up. "Your mother--" his voice faltered and failed him.
"Can you still hold his hand after what I have said? I tell you
again, he is unworthy to be in your presence; my house is his home no
longer--must I _command_ you to leave him?"

The deeply planted instinct of gentleness and obedience prevailed; she
dropped my hand, but did not move away from me, even yet.

"Now leave us, Clara," he said. "You were wrong, my love, to be in that
room, and wrong to come in here. I will speak to you up-stairs--you must
remain here no longer."

She clasped her trembling fingers together, and sighed heavily.

"I cannot go, Sir," she said quickly and breathlessly.

"Must I tell you for the first time in your life, that you are acting
disobediently?" he asked.

"I cannot go," she repeated in the same manner, "till you have said you
will let him atone for his offence, and will forgive him."

"For _his_ offence there is neither atonement nor forgiveness. Clara!
are you so changed, that you can disobey me to my face?"

He walked away from us as he said this.

"Oh, no! no!" She ran towards him; but stopped halfway, and looked back
at me affrightedly, as I stood near the door. "Basil," she cried, "you
have not done what you promised me; you have not been patient. Oh, Sir,
if I have ever deserved kindness from you, be kind to him for _my_ sake!
Basil! speak, Basil! Ask his pardon on your knees. Father, I promised
him he should be forgiven, if I asked you. Not a word; not a word from
either? Basil! you are not going yet--not going at all! Remember, Sir,
how good and kind he has always been to _me._ My poor mother, (I _must_
speak of her), my poor mother's favourite son--you have told me so
yourself! and he has always been my favourite brother; I think because
my mother loved him so! His first fault, too! his first grief! And will
you tell him for this, that our home is _his_ home no longer? Punish
_me,_ Sir! I have done wrong like him; when I heard your voices so loud,
I listened in the library. He's going! No, no, no! not yet!"

She ran to the door as I opened it, and pushed it to again. Overwhelmed
by the violence of her agitation, my father had sunk into a chair while
she was speaking.

"Come back--come back with me to his knees!" she whispered, fixing her
wild, tearless eyes on mine, flinging her arms ro