All that had lately happened--the loss of fortune and of station--the dark and irritating suspicions which had been instilled into his mind in regard to his child's conduct--the doubts which had been produced of her frankness and candor--the fact before his eyes, that she loved another better, far better, than himself, with a kind word, now and then, from Mrs. Hazleton, spoken to drive the dart deeper into his heart, had rendered him somewhat morose and gloomy,--apt to take a bad view of other people's actions, and to judge less fairly than he always wished to judge. When Marlow hastened away from him to rejoin Emily, and paint, with her, in all the brightest colors of imagination, a picture of the glowing future, her father would walk solitary and thoughtful, giving himself up to dark and unprofitable reveries. Mrs. Hastings in the mean time would take counsel with Mrs. Hazleton, and they would settle between them that the father was already dissatisfied with the engagement he had aided to bring about, and that a little persevering opposition on the part of the mother, would ultimately bring that engagement to an end. Mrs. Hastings, too, thought--or rather seemed to feel, for she did not reduce it to thought--that she had now a greater right to exercise some authority in regard to her daughter's marriage, as Emily's whole fortune must proceed from her own property. She ventured to oppose more boldly, and to express her opinion against the marriage, both to her husband and her child. It was against the advice of Mrs. Hazleton that she did so; for that lady knew Mr. Hastings far better than his own wife knew him; and while Emily's cheek burned, and her eye swam in tears, Mr. Hastings replied in so stern and bitter a tone that Mrs. Hastings shrunk back alarmed at what she herself had done. But the word had been spoken: the truth revealed. Both Mr. Hastings and Emily were thenceforth aware that she wished the engagement between her daughter and Marlow broken off--she was opposed to the marriage; and would oppose it. The effect of this revelation of her views upon her child and her husband, was very different. Emily had colored with surprise and grief--not, as her father thought, with anger; and she resolved thenceforth to endeavor to soften her mother's feelings towards him she loved, and to win her consent to that upon which all her own happiness depended; but in which her own happiness could not be complete without a mother's approbation.