‘They are heartily welcome to remember it,’ said Oliver, with perhaps more heat than there was occasion for. ‘What! deny our father, Fan, who never did a thing to be ashamed of? which is what few men’s sons in any rank can say. It is my turn to wonder. My origin is the last thing I should wish my associates to forget if I were to become a master in Friarton, which I have not the slightest intention of being.’ ‘You know that is not what I meant,’ protested Fan, growing pale with reproach and excitement; ‘I loved and honoured father with all my heart, Oliver, you know I did. And it is no dishonour to his memory to say that while I am proud to think he had qualities far above those of an ordinary tradesman, I am sorry he had to go into trade, and to continue in it all his life.’ ‘I don’t know what you call an ordinary tradesman,’ said Oliver; ‘but though I am perfectly aware that you were the best of daughters, Fan,—I would not for a moment think of questioning it,—I must in common truth blame you for inconsistency. My father, who was as you say all his life in trade, had not the opinion of it which you appear to hold; and I must say to look upon trade as degrading, is rather an odd way, though you don’t intend it, of honouring the man who was pleased to be the miller and baker of Friarton.’ ‘Father was an old man who belonged to another generation than ours,’ Fan defended herself. ‘I have no doubt there were as many fools in the past generation as in the present,’ growled Oliver, not very politely, but his spirit was beginning to kindle into a flame. ‘He got on in the world,’ continued Fan, paying no attention to the growl. ‘Our starting-point, thanks to him, is not what his was. He was willing that you should go to Oxford and become a scholar and gentleman.’ ‘Yes, God bless him!’ said Oliver, shortly. ‘After all I cannot think what we are arguing about;’ Fan took herself back with a faint smile. ‘Over what you imagine is my undervaluation of trade—but that is past so far as we are concerned. And I promise to respect any profession you may choose, Oliver.’ ‘I am not going in for any profession,’ said Oliver, still a little moodily. He was a man by nature eager for the sympathy of those he cared for, though he was not dependent upon it, and he knew he would get no sympathy from Fan in what he was about to do, therefore he had instinctively put off to the last moment telling her his intention. ‘Are you going abroad then?’ inquired Fan, with her heart sinking fathoms deeper than at its first disappointment. Was Oliver, her only brother, all that she had in the light of mere kindred, deliberately purposing to cut himself off from her? He professed to put small weight on his advantages; but was he meaning to let them—as in the case of so many men who rose in the world—be the means of creating a gulf between him and the single person who represented his relations and his early life? Which of the two was the inconsistent person?