"No, of course not." "You must see Harriet's father in the morning, and make a clean breast of it; and then if he turn you off with a short word--feeling himself a rich man, and above the connection--why, you will put up with it gravely, and like a Hinchford. There are a great many things against your chances, my boy." "We're both too young, perhaps," suggested Sidney, more dolefully. "Years too young," was the reply; "and people have unpleasant habits of changing their minds--and then what a fix it would be, Sid! Why, Harriet Wesden's not eighteen till next month--quite a child!" "No, I'm hanged if she is!" burst forth Sidney. "Well then, you're but a boy, after all; and these long and early engagements are bad things for both. But still as it has come, you must speak to the old people; and if they have no objection--which I think they will have--and Harriet is inclined to accept you--which I think she isn't--why, make the best of it, work on in the old sure and steady fashion--you're worth waiting for, my lad." "Thank you, dad," was the reply; "you're very kind, but your opinion of me is not the world's. I'm a cross-grained, unforgiving, disagreeable person--there!" "In your enemy's estimation--but your friends?" "I don't know that I have any." "Oh! we shall see--and if you have not any abroad," he added, "you must put up with the old one at home, Sid." "He will put up with me, I hope; he will remember that I have only him yet awhile to tell my hopes and fears to, standing in the place of the mother." "Ah! the good mother, lost so early to us!--she should have heard this story, Sid." The old man snatched up the paper and began reading; the son turned to his own work at last, and was soon buried in accounts. But the paper was uninteresting, and the accounts foggy; after awhile both gave it up, and talked again of the old subject. Sid's full heart overflowed that night, and his reticence belonged not to it; he was sure of sympathy with his feelings, and had the mother--ever a gentle and dear listener--been at his side, he could not have more fully dwelt upon the love which had troubled him so long, and which he had kept so well concealed. It had grown with his growth; Harriet's playfellow, Harriet's brother, finally Harriet's lover. Page after page, chapter after chapter of the story which begins ever the same, and only darts off at a tangent when the crisis, such as his, comes in due course, to end in various ways--happily, deplorably--in the sunshine of comedy, the mystery of melodrama, the darkness of tragedy, taking its hues from the "surroundings," and giving us poor scribes no end of subjects to write upon. Mr. Hinchford was a patient listener; other men might have been wearied by the romantic side to a love-sick youth's character; but Sid was a part of himself, and he had no ambition, no hope in which his son did not stand in the foreground, a bright figure to keep him rejoicing.