at you have insuperable--ay,
insuperable is the word--I wish, by the way, you would write a more
distinct current hand--draw a score through the tops of your t's, and
open the loops of your l's--insuperable objections to the arrangements
which I have proposed to you. There is much more to the same effect,
occupying four good pages of paper, which a little attention to
perspicuity and distinctness of expression might have comprised within as
many lines. For, after all, Frank, it amounts but to this, that you will
not do as I would have you."

"That I cannot, sir, in the present instance, not that I will not."

"Words avail very little with me, young man," said my father, whose
inflexibility always possessed the air of the most perfect calmness of
self-possession. "_Can not_ may be a more civil phrase than _will not,_
but the expressions are synonymous where there is no moral impossibility.
But I am not a friend to doing business hastily; we will talk this matter
over after dinner.--Owen!"

Owen appeared, not with the silver locks which you were used to venerate,
for he was then little more than fifty; but he had the same, or an
exactly similar uniform suit of light-brown clothes,--the same pearl-grey
silk stockings,--the same stock, with its silver buckle,--the same
plaited cambric ruffles, drawn down over his knuckles in the parlour, but
in the counting-house carefully folded back under the sleeves, that they
might remain unstained by the ink which he daily consumed;--in a word,
the same grave, formal, yet benevolent cast of features, which continued
to his death to distinguish the head clerk of the great house of
Osbaldistone and Tresham.

"Owen," said my father, as the kind old man shook me affectionately by
the hand, "you must dine with us to-day, and hear the news Frank has
brought us from our friends in Bourdeaux."

Owen made one of his stiff bows of respectful gratitude; for, in those
days, when the distance between superiors and inferiors was enforced in a
manner to which the present times are strangers, such an invitation was a
favour of some little consequence.

I shall long remember that dinner-party. Deeply affected by feelings of
anxiety, not unmingled with displeasure, I was unable to take that active
share in the conversation which my father seemed to expect from me; and I
too frequently gave unsatisfactory answers to the questions with which he
assailed me. Owen, hovering betwixt his respect for his