"My father, finding my proud young wife not exactly to his taste, came less and less to our house. Finally, he bought an old estate in Hertfordshire, and then one day the news reached us that he had engaged himself to a very young girl, and that he would marry at once. There was nothing wrong in this marriage, but Jasper and I chose to consider it a sin. We had never forgotten our mother, and we thought it a dishonor to her. We forgot our father's loneliness. In short, we were unreasonable and behaved as unreasonably as unreasonable men will on such occasions. Hot and angry words passed between our father and ourselves. We neither liked our father's marriage nor his choice. Of course, we were scarcely likely to turn the old man from his purpose, but we refused to have anything to do with his young wife. Under such circumstances we had an open quarrel. Our father married, and we did not see him for years. I was unhappy at this, for I loved my father. Before his second marriage, he always spent from Saturday to Monday at our house, and though my own wife not caring for him greatly marred our pleasure, yet now that the visits had absolutely ceased I missed them--I missed the gray head and the shrewd, old, kindly face; and often, very often, I almost resolved to run down into Hertfordshire and make up my quarrel. I did not do so, however; and as the years went on, I grew afraid to mention my father's name to either my wife or brother. Jasper and I were at this time deeply absorbed in speculation; our business was growing and growing; each thing we embarked in turned out well; we were beginning quite to recover from the strain which our father's removal of so large a sum of money had caused. Jasper was a better man of business than I was. Jasper, though the junior partner, took the lead in all plans. He proposed that an Australian branch of our business should be opened. It was done, and succeeded well. "About this time we heard that a little son had arrived at the Hermitage in Hertfordshire. He did not live long. We saw his birth announced in _The Times_. It may have been some months later, though, looking back on it, it seems but a few days, that the birth was followed by the death. A year or two passed away, and my wife and I were made happy by the arrival of our first child. The child was a daughter. We called her Charlotte, after my much-loved mother. Time went on, until one day a telegram was put into my hand summoning my brother and myself to our father's deathbed. The telegram was sent by the young wife. I rushed off at once; Jasper followed by the next train. "The hale old man had broken up very suddenly at last, and the doctor said he had but a few days to live. During those few days, Jasper and I scarcely left his bedside; we were reconciled fully and completely, and he died at last murmuring my own mother's name and holding our hands.