Julia opened her eyes, and was a good deal agitated as well as surprised. “Pray do not raise my hopes,” she gasped. “We are parted for ever. His father refuses. Even you seemed averse; or have I been dreaming?” “Me, dearest? How can I be averse to anything lawful on which I find your heart is really set, and your happiness at stake? Of course I have stopped the actual intercourse, under existing circumstances; but these circumstances are not unalterable: your only obstacle is Mr. Richard Hardie.” “But what an obstacle!” sighed Julia. “His father! a man of iron! so everybody says; for I have made inquiries--oh!” And she was abashed. She resumed hastily, “And that letter, so cold, so cruel! I feel it was written by one not open to gentle influences. He does not think me worthy of his son so accomplished, so distinguished at the very university where our poor Edward--has--you know----” “Little simpleton!” said Mrs. Dodd, and kissed her tenderly; “your iron man is the commonest clay, sordid, pliable; and your stern heroic Brutus is a shopkeeper: he is open to the gentle influences which sway the kindred souls of the men you and I buy our shoes, our tea, our gloves, our fish-kettles of: and these influences I think I command, and am prepared to use them to the utmost.” Julia lay silent, and wondering what she could mean. But Mrs. Dodd hesitated now: it pained and revolted her to show her enthusiastic girl the world as it is. She said as much, and added--“I seem to be going to aid all these people to take the bloom from my own child's innocence. Heaven help me!” “Oh, never mind that,” cried Julia in her ardent way; “give me Truth before Error, however pleasing.” Mrs. Dodd replied only by a sigh: grand general sentiments like that never penetrated her mind: they glided off like water from a duck's back. “We will begin with this mercantile Brutus, then,” said she, with such a curl of the lip. Brutus had rejected her daughter.