"Henry," exclaimed the mother, hastily, "what do you mean, how can you be so ungrateful?" "Mary, my dear," interrupted the father, "please leave the matter to me." Then turning to the son: "What is this you are saying? I'm afraid I don't understand." "I mean that Esther and I have decided to leave home and live together; because it is impossible for us to live here any longer in happiness--" "On what do you propose to live?" "My salary will be sufficient for the present." "Sixty pounds a year!" "Yes!" "And may I ask what is wrong with your home? You have every comfort--far more than your mother or father were accustomed to." "Yes, indeed!" echoed the mother. "Yes, we know you are very good and kind, and mean everything for our good; but you don't understand other needs of our natures, and you make no allowance for our individualities--" "Indeed! Individualities--I should like you to have heard what my father would have said to talk about individualities. A rope's end would have been his answer to that--" "It would have been a very silly one, and no argument." "It would have been effective, at all events." "Not with me--" "Well, please don't bandy words with me, sir. If you," particularly addressing his son, "wish to go--then go; but remember that once you have left your father's roof, you leave it for ever. As for your sister, she has no power to leave her mother and father without my consent, and that I shall certainly withhold till she is of a proper age to know what is best for herself--" "She will go then without your consent," defiantly answered the son. "Oh, Henry, for shame!" exclaimed Mrs. Mesurier. "Mother dear, I'm sorry,--we don't mean to be disrespectful or undutiful,--but father's petty tyrannies are more than we can bear. He objects to the friends we care for; he denies us the theatre--" "Most certainly, and shall continue to do so. I have never been inside a theatre in my life; nor, with my consent, shall any child of mine enter one of them." "You can evidently know little about them then, and you'd be a much finer man if you had," flashed out the son. "Your sitting in judgment on your father is certainly very pretty, I must say,"--answered the father,--"very pretty; and I can only hope that you will not have cause to regret it some future day. But I cannot allow you to disturb me," for, with something of a pang, Henry noticed signs of agitation amid the severity of his parent, though the matter was too momentous for him to allow the indulgence of pity.