t this may be, for aught I
know to the contrary, the last opportunity I may have of pleading my
cause; and then say whether it is possible for me to conceal from you
that I can only look to your forbearance and sympathy for permission to
retrieve my error, to--to--Mr. Langley! I cannot choose expressions at
such a moment as this. I can only tell you that the feeling with which I
regarded your daughter Clara, when I first saw her, still remains what
it was. I cannot analyze it; I cannot reconcile its apparent
inconsistencies and contradictions; I cannot explain how, while I may
seem to you and to every one to have varied and vacillated with insolent
caprice, I have really remained, in my own heart and to my own
conscience, true to my first sensations and my first convictions. I can
only implore you not to condemn me to a life of disappointment and
misery, by judging me with hasty irritation. Favor me, so far at least,
as to relate the conversation which has passed between us to your two
daughters. Let me hear how it affects each of them towards me. Let me
know what they are willing to think and ready to do under such
unparalleled circumstances as have now occurred. I will wait _your_
time, and _their_ time; I will abide by _your_ decision and _their_
decision, pronounced after the first poignant distress and irritation of
this day's events have passed over."

Still Mr. Langley remained silent; the angry word was on his tongue; the
contemptuous rejection of what he regarded for the moment as a
proposition equally ill-timed and insolent, seemed bursting to his lips;
but once more he restrained himself. He rose from his seat, and walked
slowly backwards and forwards, deep in thought. Mr. Streatfield was too
much overcome by his own agitation to plead his cause further by another
word. There was a silence in the room now, which lasted for some time.

We have said that Mr. Langley was a man of the world. He was strongly
attached to his children; but he had a little of the selfishness and
much of the reverence for wealth of a man of the world. As he now
endeavored to determine mentally on his proper course of action--to
disentangle the whole case from all its mysterious intricacies--to view
it, extraordinary as it was, in its proper bearings, his thoughts began
gradually to assume what is called, "a practical turn." He reflected
that he had another daughter, besides the twin-sisters, to provide for;
and that he had two sons t