“If any man's hopes ever came to shipwreck, mine have. Just look back over my life. Look at the professional career I gave up when I married your mother, in order to be with her more than I otherwise could have been. Look how poorly we lived, she and I, on the little income she brought me. And then the burden of you children! And what some men would have felt a burden, as you grew up, I made a source of hopes. I had endowed you both with good looks and talent; Dick with business ability, and you with a gift for music. In order to cultivate these advantages, which you had inherited from me, I refrained from going into any business when your mother died. I was satisfied to share the small allowance her father made you two children. I never complained. I said to myself, 'I will invest my time in bringing up my children.' I thought it would turn out the most profitable investment in the world,--I gave you children that much credit then. How I looked forward to the time when I should begin to realize on the investment!” “I'm sure you can't say Dick hasn't repaid you,” says the girl. “He began to earn money as soon as he was nineteen, and he has never--” “Time enough, too,” the man breaks in. “It was a very fortunate thing I had fitted him for it by then. Where would he have been, and you, when your grandfather died in debt, and the allowance stopped short, if I hadn't prepared Dick to step in and make his living?” “_Our_ living,” says the girl. “Our living, of course. It would be very strange if I weren't to reap a bare living, at least, from my labor and care. Who should get a living out of Dick's work if not his father, who equipped him with the qualities for success?” The gentleman speaks as if, in passing on those valuable qualities to his son by heredity, he had deprived himself. “Dick hasn't done any more than he ought to; he never could. And yet what _he_ has done, is so much more than nothing at all, that--” He stops as if it were useless to finish, and looks at his daughter, who, despite the fact that this conversation is an almost daily repetition, colors with displeasure. After a moment, she gathers some spirit, and says: “Well, if I haven't earned any money for you, I've at least made some sacrifices to please you.” “You mean about the young fellow that hung on to us so close on our trip to Europe?” “The young man who did us so many kindnesses, and was of so much use to you, on our trip to Europe,” she corrects. “He thought I was rich, my dear, and that you were an heiress. He was a nobody, an adventurer, probably. If things had gone any further between you and him, your future might have been ruined. It was only another example of my solicitude for you; another instance that deserves your thanks, but elicits your ingratitude. If you are fastidious about a musical career, at least you have still a possibility of a good marriage. It was my duty to prevent that possibility from being cut off.”