Helen Buchanan stood alone at the gate of her mother’s garden; there was a nervous tremor about her as she leaned upon the hawthorn-hedge, with her face towards the setting sun. These October nights were becoming chill, and the shawl she drew round her was not a warm one; but her trembling sprung from quite another cause. She was young and proud and poor; and William Oswald, walking as if for a wager, and looking almost as nervously firm as she did, had newly left the gate. He had been telling her something which to him seemed perfectly reasonable, something which certainly in the abstract did not look unreasonable in any view: that he, a man, able to exercise judgment for himself, and able honourably to earn his own bread, did not feel himself bound by the decision of his father, did not feel by any means that his father’s iron will should or could restrain him in those early, strong, energetic years of his manhood; that honouring his father as a father should be honoured, he yet felt some individual rights, which no man could exercise for him. So far was well enough; the daughter of Walter Buchanan drew up her elastic figure, and strengthening herself in nervous stillness waited for what she knew would follow. It came in a flood--bold, and grave, and decided as William Oswald always was, when his reserve was broken through. The world was all before them where to choose, and Helen felt that when he spoke of independent labour for which he was strong and able, and of success to be won by that, he spoke the truth, and for a moment the hereditary pride ebbed, and her heart rose to the congenial struggle; but it could not be. Before half the words of her answer were spoken, he had learned it all from the unmistakeable language of her face. “Never, unless received in honour and goodwill, with the respect and tenderness which became a daughter. Never!” They had parted--not in anger, but with some degree of excitement and pain--each with a stronger resolution to overcome the other, each only the more determined to persevere and win. The matter had become a single-handed combat, the combatants were well matched, the issue doubtful; time and the hour could alone decide.