t a little proud of this) "I have determined that it is
wise to withdraw my opposition, and to recall Robert to his proper place,
which is near me. I am sure that my feelings in this matter will be clear
to you, and that you will look with indulgence upon any acts of mine
which sprang from a natural solicitation for the welfare and happiness of
my only child. I shall be in Brampton in a day or two, and I shall at
once give myself the pleasure of calling on you. Sincerely yours, Isaac
D. Worthington."

Perhaps a little formal and pompous for some people, but an admirable and
conciliatory letter for the first citizen of Brampton. Written under such
trying circumstances, with I know not how many erasures and false starts,
it is little short of a marvel in art: neither too much said, nor too
little, for a relenting parent of Mr. Worthington's character, and I
doubt whether Talleyrand or Napoleon or even Machiavelli himself could
have surpassed it. The second letter, now that Mr. Worthington had got
into the swing, was more easily written. "My dear Robert" (it said), "I
have made up my mind to give my consent to your marriage to Miss
Wetherell, and I am ready to welcome you home, where I trust I shall see
you shortly. I have not been unimpressed by the determined manner in
which you have gone to work for yourself, but I believe that your place
is in Brampton, where I trust you will show the same energy in learning
to succeed me in the business which I have founded there as you have
exhibited in Mr. Broke's works. Affectionately, your Father."

A very creditable and handsome letter for a forgiving father. When Mr.
Worthington had finished it, and had addressed both the envelopes, his
shame and vexation had, curious to relate, very considerably abated. Not
to go too deeply into the somewhat contradictory mental and cardiac
processes of Mr. Worthington, he had somehow tricked himself by that
magic exercise of wielding his pen into thinking that he was doing a
noble and generous action: into believing that in the course of a very
few days--or weeks, at the most, he would have recalled his erring son
and have given Cynthia his blessing. He would, he told himself, have been
forced eventually to yield when that paragon of inflexibility, Bob,
dictated terms to him at the head of the locomotive works. Better let the
generosity be on his (Mr. Worthington's) side. At all events, victory had
never been bought more cheaply. Humiliation,