"What is it, sir? Why do you not speak to me? Can it be that you disapprove of my marrying?" Sir Thomas certainly did disapprove of his son's marrying, but he lacked the courage to say so. Much misery that had hitherto come upon him, and that was about to come on all those whom he loved so well, arose from this lack of courage. He did not dare to tell his son that he advised him for the present to put aside all such hopes. It would have been terrible for him to do so; but he knew that in not doing so he was occasioning sorrow that would be more terrible. And yet he did not do it. Herbert saw clearly that the project was distasteful to his father,--that project which he had hoped to have seen received with so much delight; but nothing was said to him which tended to make him alter his purpose. "Do you not like her?" he asked his father, almost piteously. "Yes, yes; I do like her, we all like her, very much indeed, Herbert." "Then why--" "You are so young, my boy, and she is so very young, and--" "And what?" "Why, Herbert, it is not always practicable for the son even of a man of property to marry so early in life as this. She has nothing, you know." "No," said the young man, proudly; "I never thought of looking for money." "But in your position it is so essential if a young man wishes to marry." Herbert had always regarded his father as the most liberal man breathing,--as open-hearted and open-handed almost to a fault. To him, his only son, he had ever been so, refusing him nothing, and latterly allowing him to do almost as he would with the management of the estate. He could not understand that this liberality should be turned to parsimony on such an occasion as that of his son's marriage. "You think then, sir, that I ought not to marry Lady Clara?" said Herbert very bitterly. "I like her excessively," said Sir Thomas. "I think she is a sweet girl, a very sweet girl, all that I or your mother could desire to see in your wife; but--" "But she is not rich." "Do not speak to me in that tone, my boy," said Sir Thomas, with an expression that would have moved his enemy to pity, let alone his son. His son did pity him, and ceased to wear the angry expression of face which had so wounded his father. "But, father, I do not understand you," he said. "Is there any real objection why I should not marry? I am more than twenty-two, and you, I think, married earlier than that." In answer to this Sir Thomas only sighed meekly and piteously. "If you mean to say," continued the son, "that it will be inconvenient to you to make me any allowance--" "No, no, no; you are of course entitled to what you want, and as long as I can give it, you shall have it." "As long as you can give it, father!" "As long as it is in my power, I mean. What can I want of anything but for you--for you and them?"