“There have been a lot of invitations for you. I did not think it worth while to send them to Altes. You can look them over, and tell me if there are any you wish to accept. What gaiety you wish for, you must be content with early this year, for Lady Barnstaple is going abroad in a few weeks to some German baths, and I don’t care about your going out with any one else.” “Thank you, Papa,” said Marion, really grateful for the unusual interest he expressed in her concerns, “I shall look over the invitations but I don’t think I care very much about going out this year. A very few times before Lady Barnstaple leaves town, will quite content me. I have a letter from Harry,” she went on, feeling unusually bold, “he wants to know if he may come up from Woolwich for next Saturday and Sunday to see me. It is so long since we have seen each other,” she added deprecatingly, for something in the way the newspaper rustled, frightened away her newly found audacity. “Harry wants to know if he may come for next Saturday and Sunday, does he?” said Mr. Vere, very slowly, distinctly emphasizing each word of the sentence, “then, you will perhaps be so good as to tell him from me that most certainly he may not come here for Saturday, Sunday, or any other day, fill I see fit to send for him. Idle young idiot, that he is! I wonder he is not ashamed to propose such a thing. Had he worked as he should have done years ago, he might now have been at the head of the Woolwich academy, instead of being, at seventeen, obliged to cram at a tutor’s to obtain even a Line commission. And now, forsooth, he thinks he is to have it all his own way and run up and down to town, whenever the fancy seizes him! I tell you, Marion, you mean well, I believe, but if there is to be peace among us, you must be careful what sort of influence you exert over your brother. I give you fair warning of this. See that you attend to it.” And so saying, he marched out of the room, newspaper in hand, without giving his daughter time to reply. It was well he did so, for the fast coming tears would have choked her voice. Though by no means a woman of the lachrymose order, Marion’s self-control had of late somewhat deserted her, and she had so longed to see Harry! Not only this, she had come home, though anxious and depressed, thoroughly determined to fulfil to the best of her power, her daughter’s duty. The hope that no very long time would elapse, before she might be taken to a more congenial home, naturally encouraged her to the better performance of her present duties, before they should be beyond her power—among the things of the past: and joined to this, was a half superstitious, hardly acknowledged belief, that according to her present earnestness in well-doing, would be the measure of her future happiness.