determined brow,
although he never spoke in a more respectful tone, than while thus steadily
opposing his father. If he had shown more violence of manner, he would have
irritated him less; but, as it was, if was the most miserable interview
that had ever taken place between the father and son.

Mr. Buxton tried to calm himself down with believing that Frank would
change his mind, if he saw more of the world; but, somehow, he had a
prophesying distrust of this idea internally. The worst was, there was
no fault to be found with Maggie herself, although she might want the
accomplishments he desired to see in his son's wife. Her connections, too,
were so perfectly respectable (though humble enough in comparison with Mr.
Buxton's soaring wishes), that there was nothing to be objected to on that
score; her position was the great offence. In proportion to his want of any
reason but this one, for disapproving of the engagement, was his annoyance
under it. He assumed a reserve toward Frank; which was so unusual a
restraint upon his open, genial disposition, that it seemed to make him
irritable toward all others in contact with him, excepting Erminia. He
found it difficult to behave rightly to Maggie. Like all habitually cordial
persons, he went into the opposite extreme, when he wanted to show a little
coolness. However angry he might be with the events of which she was the
cause, she was too innocent and meek to justify him in being more than
cool; but his awkwardness was so great, that many a man of the world has
met his greatest enemy, each knowing the other's hatred, with less freezing
distance of manner than Mr. Buxton's to Maggie. While she went simply on in
her own path, loving him the more through all, for old kindness' sake, and
because he was Frank's father, he shunned meeting her with such evident and
painful anxiety, that at last she tried to spare him the encounter, and
hurried out of church, or lingered behind all, in order to avoid the only
chance they now had of being forced to speak; for she no longer went to the
dear house in Combehurst, though Erminia came to see her more than ever.

Mrs. Browne was perplexed and annoyed beyond measure. She upbraided Mr.
Buxton to every one but Maggie. To her she said--"Any one in their senses
might have foreseen what had happened, and would have thought well about
it, before they went and fell in love with a young man of such expectations
as Mr. Frank Buxton."

In the middle