“Have you settled that too?--is it all decided? Oh, Dr Mitford, you have been hasty with him!” cried John’s mother. “I told you if you would but take time enough, and go into things with him, and explain----” “I don’t think explaining would have done much good,” said Mr Crediton. “It rarely does, when a young fellow has got such an idea into his head. The only thing is, that when a boy changes once he may change twice--when he is older, and this fever-fit, perhaps, may be over----” “Oh, can you sit and hear this?” cried Kate, springing to her feet. “Oh, papa, how can you be so wicked and so rude? Do you think John is like that--to take a fancy and give it over? And you are his mother, and know him best, and you leave him to be defended by me!” “Kate, my dear!” cried Mrs Mitford, hastening to her, “you make me hate myself. You understand my boy--you stand up for him when his own flesh and blood is silent. And I love you with all my heart! And I will never, never grudge him to you again!” And the two women rushed into each other’s arms, and clung together in a passion of tears and mutual consolation; while the men, for their part, looked grimly on, vanquished, yet finding a certain satisfaction in their sense of superiority to any such folly. Mr Crediton sat down, with the hard unsympathetic self-possession of a man who has still a blow to deliver; and poor Dr Mitford walked up and down the room, aware of what was yet to come. But in the mean time the victims over whom the stroke was lowering had delivered themselves all at once from their special misery. The ice had broken between them. John, who had divided them, became all at once their bond of union. “Mamma, if you will stand by me I can do anything,” Kate whispered, with her lips upon Mrs Mitford’s cheek. “My own child!” John’s mother whispered in reply; and thus the treaty was made which was to set all other diplomacies at nought. “I think it is a great pity,” said Mr Crediton again, “but of course, in the turn that circumstances have taken, I must help him as best I can. It is not very much I can do, for you are aware when a young man changes his profession all in a minute, it is a difficult thing to provide for him. And he did not seem to have any clear idea what to do with himself. Probably you will feel it is not equal to your son’s pretensions, Mrs Mitford--but I have offered him a clerkship in my bank.” “A clerkship in your bank!” cried Mrs Mitford, petrified. She withdrew a little from Kate in her consternation, and sat down and gazed, trying to take in and understand this extraordinary piece of news. “Papa, you cannot mean it,” cried Kate, vehemently. “Oh, are you papa, or somebody come to mock us? A clerkship in the bank--for Dr Mitford’s son--for--John!”