ance, at any rate without trepidation. It
was, he thought, probable that the father, at the first attack, would
neither altogether accede, or altogether refuse. The disposition of
the man was averse to the probability of an absolute reply at the
first moment. The lover imagined that it might be possible for him to
take advantage of the period of doubt which would thus be created.

Mr. Wharton was and had for a great many years been a barrister
practising in the Equity Courts,--or rather in one Equity Court, for
throughout a life's work now extending to nearly fifty years, he had
hardly ever gone out of the single Vice-Chancellor's Court which was
much better known by Mr. Wharton's name than by that of the less
eminent judge who now sat there. His had been a very peculiar, a very
toilsome, but yet probably a very satisfactory life. He had begun his
practice early, and had worked in a stuff gown till he was nearly
sixty. At that time he had amassed a large fortune, mainly from his
profession, but partly also by the careful use of his own small
patrimony and by his wife's money. Men knew that he was rich, but
no one knew the extent of his wealth. When he submitted to take a
silk gown, he declared among his friends that he did so as a step
preparatory to his retirement. The altered method of work would not
suit him at his age, nor,--as he said,--would it be profitable. He
would take his silk as an honour for his declining years, so that he
might become a bencher at his Inn. But he had now been working for
the last twelve or fourteen years with his silk gown,--almost as hard
as in younger days, and with pecuniary results almost as serviceable;
and though from month to month he declared his intention of taking
no fresh briefs, and though he did now occasionally refuse work,
still he was there with his mind as clear as ever, and with his body
apparently as little affected by fatigue.

Mr. Wharton had not married till he was forty, and his wife had now
been two years dead. He had had six children,--of whom but two were
now left to make a household for his old age. He had been nearly
fifty when his youngest daughter was born, and was therefore now an
old father of a young child. But he was one of those men who, as
in youth they are never very young, so in age are they never very
old. He could still ride his cob in the park jauntily; and did so
carefully every morning in his life, after an early cup of tea and
before his breakf