y because he had been the
unfortunate means of depriving him of his father!

Harry had agitating scenes with his mother besides; these two had never
been placed against each other before, and the contest between them was
neither gracious nor good for either heart.

"Harry, I am horrified at you; it is a dishonour to your poor father's
memory; it is shocking to think of it; and if you have been so lost to
duty as to fall into so unnatural an entanglement, it is surely the
least you owe to both parents to give it up."

"Mother! I cannot see it as you do; my father fully exonerated Mr.
Crawfurd--you have told me so a hundred times. No one, not you, his
widow, mourned my father as Mr. Crawfurd mourned--nay, mourns him to
this day."

"Harry, do you wish to see a bloody guest present at your wedding?"

"Mother, that is a baseless, cruel horror. You would not wish me to
maintain a hereditary feud on the principle of my forefathers. I cannot
tell what the Christian religion teaches if it does not enjoin
forgiveness of injuries."

"I hope I am a Christian, Harry, and I have tried to forgive my
enemies, but it is one thing to make every allowance for them and
entertain charitable feelings towards them, and another to ally myself
with them, and constitute them my closest friends. Harry, the whole
neighbourhood would shrink from the idea of what you contemplate."

"If my principles and my heart said Yes, not the neighbourhood, but
the whole world might cry No, and I would not feel bound to listen to
the clamour."

"A young man's improper boast, Harry, and since you force me to it, not
the world alone--I tell you nature objects to that girl--that girl of
them all; how can you look her in the face and think of love?"

"Would you have me think of hate? Since you make the allusion, I declare
to you, mother, that mark appeals to you and me in another fashion.
Cain's brand! do they call it? And who set the brand, and when, on
Cain's brow? Sovereign clemency, after the wanderer's punishment was
more than he could bear, if the reflection of my father's blood was
transmitted to so innocent and noble a proxy, it must have been designed
to teach such as you and me New Testament lessons of perfect charity."

"Harry, I have never been able to look that girl in the face."

"Mother, I pray never to forget that face, although it remain like an
angel's face to me, because it is the fairest example of the human face
divine that I ever h