146 A BREAKFAST, AND — BROKEN B0^ ** 



" It is well so. You understand lilm, still il it \ .<r 

 per that you should hear me out. Will you listen i'* 



" Miss Merton, can you doubt it ? Pray go on. You 

 will know me better one day." 



" There is little to tell. Papa, though the best of 

 men and kindest of fathers, loving us both — we are 

 liis only two — with his whole heart, and desiring to 

 render us happy Avith all his soul, believes that we can- 

 not possibly be happy except by following his advice 

 — commands I should say — for his counsel is ever a 

 command, and not to take it is to be a disobedient 

 child, a rebel ! — -and if there is one thing on earth he 

 hates, it is a rebel. He hates a rebel as much at least 

 as he loves his king, and him he loves second only to 

 his God. Charley is, as I conclude you know, quick 

 when aroused, reluctant under injury, and resolute 

 under threats. Papa, it seems, had set his mind on a 

 match for Charles, unsuspected by either him or me, 

 with a very nice girl, a cousin of ours, much too 

 nearly a sister in feeling ever to be a wife. Charley 

 fell in love with the dearest little girl that ever lived, 

 won her consent, and came in rapture to ask Papa's, 

 when to his wonder, even more than his dismay, he 

 was met by a command instantly to marry a woman 

 he had never thought about more than he had about 

 me, and who — he had every reason to believe — herself 

 loved another. All this he pleaded, and much more, 

 and last that his honor was committed — and to this it 

 was replied that there was no honor above that of 

 obeying orders ; and the order followed that he should 

 instantly marry her whom he did not love and who 

 does not love him, on pain of being cut off with our 

 mother's fortune, which was happily settled upon him, 

 the family estate being settled on me. If Charley- 

 would have waited but a while, as I advised and im- 

 plored him, if he would have plainly asked our cousin 

 to become his bride, he Avould have been as plainly re* 



