ne feeling and concern.
She truly believed that the paths of fiction would lead to her son's
spiritual as well as his material ruin, and Mark had sense enough to
recognise the reality of this belief of hers, and drop the levity he
had assumed for defensive purposes.

His father had, as usual, taken no part in the interview; he sat
looking dolefully at the fire, as if anxious to remain neutral as long
as possible; he had long been a mere suzerain, and, like some other
suzerains, felt a very modified resentment at a rebellion against an
authority that was only nominally his own.

So Mark addressed himself to his mother only. 'I'm sorry if it grieves
you, mother,' he said, gently enough; 'but you really must let me go
my own way in this--it is no use at all asking me to withdraw now....
I have gone too far.... Some day you will see that I was not so very
foolish after all. I promise you that. Wouldn't you rather think of me
as living the life I could be happy in--being famous, perhaps, even,
some day--than dragging out my days in a school or slaving at a
profession I can never care for? Of course you would! And a novel
isn't such an awful thing, if you could only bring yourself to think
so. You never will read one, you know, so you can't be a very
impartial judge.'

Mrs. Ashburn read very little of any literature; what she did read
being chiefly the sermons and biographies of Dissenting divines, and
she had never felt any desire to stimulate her imagination by anything
much more exciting, especially by accounts of things that never
happened, and were consequently untruthful. Her extreme horror of
fiction was a form of bigotry now almost extinct, but she had grown up
in it and retained it in all the old Puritan vigour.

She showed no signs of being at all impressed by Mark's remonstrance;
her eyes were severely cold, and her voice measured and loud as she
replied, without looking at him.

'You won't make me change my opinion in the least, Mark, if you were
to talk till daylight. If you set yourself against my wishes in this,
we have quite made up our minds how to act, have we not, Matthew?'

'Yes, quite,' said Mr. Ashburn, uneasily, 'quite; but I hope, Mark,
my boy, I hope you won't cross your mother in this, when you see how
strongly she feels about it. I want to keep my children about me while
I can; I don't wish anyone to go if it can be arranged--if it can be
arranged.'

'Do you mean, mother, that if I don't do