“After what has occurred, Mr. Clink, since your return to town, and from the scene it was our painful fortune to witness between you and my daughter on your arrival here, I feel a firm conviction, which every day serves to strengthen, that the time has arrived when it becomes my duty as a father to come to some positive and decisive determination in this matter. Much as I respect Mr. Lupton, for notwithstanding his deep indiscretions, upon which it is not my duty to pronounce any judgment, I yet know him to be in many respects most highly deserving of esteem; and worthy and deserving a young man as I certainly think you yourself to be, yet there are causes which from the first made me fearful, when I found your preference for Jane, that a continued acquaintance between you could not lead to any happiness. I shall not allude to those causes in any more direct manner, for you probably can judge sufficiently what I mean, without the necessity for any more explicit statement.” [Illustration: 232] Poor Colin here blushed crimson and bowed his head down, as Mr. Calvert proceeded:-- “But with my habits of thinking, and the principles I have always cherished from my boyhood, it would be inconsistent with my usual practice, were I to hold those causes as too light to be regarded as an obstacle to your ultimate views. To me they are of every importance: I might more properly call them insurmountable difficulties. And though I am perfectly aware that such matters are too frequently regarded with careless, and, as I take it, with criminal indifference, yet I hold them as so far affecting in themselves the moral principles of society, as so far contrary to the dictates of religion, and to the obligations due to the more correct portions of the community, that I feel, painful and bitter as is the task, I feel compelled thus plainly and distinctly to declare my sentiments to you in the hope that, after having so done, nothing more will be required in order to assure you of the course which it is most necessary for me to wish you at once and immediately to adopt.” “Sir!” said Colin, as his heart seemed to swell into his throat and almost prevent him speaking, “I cannot, sir, but respect your motives, and feel more deeply how much _I_ shall lose if I am under the necessity of quitting this house and seeing those who are in it no more. I know what your objections are,--they are not to be removed, and are irremediable. I am what I am; and for myself I have no apology to offer,--no excuse to make.” He would have spoken more, but at that moment he could not.