"Well, then," cried the master of Marchmain, "I decline to receive you--your society is disagreeable to me. Is not that enough?" "That is perfectly enough," said Colonel Sutherland; "now, I have only my commission to discharge, and I am grieved I should have made so unfavourable a beginning. I come to you on behalf of your son." "Of my son!--oh! and of my daughter also, I presume! You would wish me to bring her 'out,' and give parties for her--perhaps you would like her to have a season in London?" said Scarsdale, with his trembling lip, and the forced smile of his passion--"is there anything else I can do for you?--for, as it happens, I choose to take Susan into my own hands." "I say nothing of Susan," said the Colonel, gravely; "if you choose to debar the poor child from all the pleasures of her youth, it is not for me to interfere. She is in God's hands, who will guide her better than either you or I. I come to you from your son. Horace is a man grown, very nearly of an independent age, clever, ambitious, and at that time of life when youths would fain see the world and act for themselves; do you think it right to keep him here without occupation or training, in the most precious years of his life? I come to you with a humble entreaty from the young man, that you will give him your permission and help to set forth upon the world for himself." "That is admirable!" said Mr. Scarsdale--"my permission and help? This is the first time I have heard of the faintest desire on his part;--nay, I do not believe that he does desire it--you have made it up among you; and no doubt you have settled the manner as well as the fact. What profession, pray, does my clever son mean to devote himself to?" "He wishes to study law," said the Colonel, laconically. "Law?--to read for the bar, I presume?" said the father; "to have chambers in the Temple, and the pleasures of _his_ youth. It is vastly well, Colonel Sutherland--I admire your project greatly--he has my _permission_ by all means; as for my _help_, I do not need to inform you what kind of claim this young man has upon me. Is it likely I should take my straitened means, from my own comfort and my daughter's, to support _him_ in luxury and idleness?--is it probable, do you think, that I will make a sacrifice for him? Can you look me honestly in the face and ask it of me?" "I trust so," said the Colonel, with a little sadness. "Scarsdale, we are both fathers--we ought to be able to understand each other; is it necessary to weigh the nature of claims, the probabilities of temper, when one appeals to a father for the future life of his son?"