y that be?'

'The younger Miss. French--Fanny.'

His voice quivered over the name; at the end he gave a gasp and a
gulp. Of a sudden his lips and tongue were very dry, and he felt a
disagreeable chill running down his back. For the listener's face had
altered noticeably; it was dark, stern, and something worse. But Mr.
Lord could still speak with self-control.

'You have asked her to marry you?'

'Yes, I have; and she has consented.'

Horace felt his courage returning, like the so-called 'second wind' of
a runner. It seemed to him that he had gone through the worst. The
disclosure was made, and had resulted in no outbreak of fury; now he
could begin to plead his cause. Imagination, excited by nervous stress,
brought before him a clear picture of the beloved Fanny, with fluffy
hair upon her forehead and a laugh on her never-closed lips. He spoke
without effort.

'I thought that there would be no harm in asking you to help us. We
should be quite content to start on a couple of hundred a year--quite.
That is only about fifty pounds more than we have.'

Calf-love inspires many an audacity. To Horace there seemed nothing
outrageous in this suggestion. He had talked it over with Fanny French
several times, and they had agreed that his father could not in decency
offer them _less_ than a hundred a year. He began to shake out the ashes
from his pipe, with a vague intention of relighting it.

'You really imagine,' said his father, 'that I should give you money to
enable you to marry that idiot?'

Evidently he put a severe restraint upon himself. The veins of his
temples were congested; his nostrils grew wide; and he spoke rather
hoarsely. Horace straightened his back, and, though in great fear,
strung himself for conflict.

'I don't see--what right--to insult the young lady.'

His father took him up sternly.

'Young lady? What do you mean by "young lady"? After all your education,
haven't you learnt to distinguish a lady from a dressed-up kitchen
wench? _I_ had none of your advantages. There was--there would have been
some excuse for _me_, if I had made such a fool of myself. What were you
doing all those years at school, if it wasn't learning the difference
between real and sham, getting to understand things better than poor
folks' children? You disappointed me, and a good deal more than I ever
told you. I had hoped you would come from school better able to make a
place in the world than your father was. I made u