"And what is that, may I ask?" with rising choler in his voice. "That you will have Nan down to Longmead, and that you and my mother sanction our engagement." "Never, sir! never!" in a vehement tone. "Please don't excite yourself, father. I think it is I who ought to be excited; but, you see, I am quite cool,--perfectly so. I am far too much in earnest to be otherwise. When a man's future prospects are at stake, and his own father seems determined to thwart him, it is time to summon up all one's energies. I hope you are not serious in what you say,--that you do absolutely refuse to sanction my engagement with Nan?" "There is no engagement. If there were, I do absolutely refuse; nay, more, I am determined actively to oppose it." "I am sorry to find you have not changed your mind; for it makes all the difference to me, I assure you. Very well: then I must go in for a City life." "Do you threaten me, sir?" "No, father, I would not be so undutiful; but it is a pity your throwing all that money away on my education if I am not to complete it. If I had taken a good degree, I might have turned out something; but never mind,--it can't be helped now. Then you will be kind enough to write a letter of introduction to Stansfield & Stansfield?" "No, sir; I will write no such letter!" thundered Mr. Mayne; and Dick put his hands in his pocket and whistled. He felt himself losing patience; but, as he said afterwards, his father was in such an awful rage that it was necessary for one of them to keep cool. So, as soon as he recovered, he said, quite pleasantly,-- "Well, if you will not, you will not. We may take a horse to the water, but we can't make him drink. And the time has not come yet for a son to order his own father, though we are pretty well advanced now." "I think we are, Dick." "I confess I am rather disappointed at not getting that letter. Mr. Stansfield would have attached some importance to it; but I dare say I shall get on with the old boy without it. I may as well tell you that I shall accept anything he likes to offer me,--even if it be only a clerkship at eighty pounds a year. After all, I am not worse off than you were at my age. You began at the bottom of the ladder: so I need not grumble." "Do you mean to say," demanded his father, in a tone of grief, "that you really intend to throw me over, and not only me, but all your advantages, your prospects in life, for the sake of this girl?" "I think it is you who are throwing me over," returned his son, candidly. "Put yourself in my place. When you were a young man, father, would you have given up my mother, if my grandfather had wished you to do so?" "The cases are different,--altogether different," was the angry response. "I never would have married a dressmaker." "There are dressmakers and dressmakers: but at least my _fiancee_ is a gentlewoman," returned his son, hotly.