He had had a stormy interview with Berkins going up in the train, and Berkins had so upset him that he had not been able to get through any business in the City. Berkins admitted of no equivocation. He had told him that he would not allow the young lady that was going to be his wife to spend her days feasting and skylarking with a lot of vulgar and penniless young men from the Southdown Road. He had declared that it was time to settle definitely the terms and the day of the marriage. He had been engaged now more than two months, and was prepared to do his share; Mr. Brookes must be prepared to do his, viz., to settle four hundred a year on his daughter. The idea of parting for ever with so much of his money convulsed Mr. Brookes. He burst into tears, and their bitterness was neither assuaged nor softened by Grace's rather haughty statement that she didn't care at all for Mr. Berkins, and was not at all sure whether she would have him or not. “So, father, you may be able to keep your money.” “But did any one ever know me to think of myself?” and he drew his silk handkerchief forth. In the new trouble, suddenly created, all other considerations were lost, and Grace became the centre of many conflicting interests; everybody asked if this marriage so long looked forward to was going to tumble into ruin among so many ruins? At dinner Willy seemed to consider himself called from the problem of perfect mastication, and he said a few words intended to allay this new family excitement; but his efforts were vain, for it had occurred to Mr. Brookes that he might find calm in a bottle of '34 port. There were a few bottles left which he appreciated at their right value. He rang for the wine, and old Joseph announced, with all the intolerable indifference of a well-trained servant, that the young gentleman had drunk it all up yesterday. Mr. Brookes kept his temper better than the girls anticipated, and it was not until he had drunk a bottle of a latter-day wine that he seemed to realise the wrong that had been done to him. He begged of Willy to listen to him, and he talked so vehemently, and cried so bitterly, and laughed so joyously, and declared so often that it would be all the same a hundred years hence, that letters and diary had to be packed away in the brown paper parcel, and all work abandoned for that evening. The next day and the next passed in continual quarrel and argument, and at the end of the week the aunts were summoned. Aunt Mary's features were sharp, her eyes were bright and she sat bolt upright on the sofa, her hands crossed over a shawl drawn tightly about her.