other will give me anything," Pen said, looking rather
disturbed.

"Yes, my good fellow, but there is reason in all things. If your mother
keeps the house, it is but fair that she should select her company. When
you give her house over her head, and transfer her banker's account
to yourself for the benefit of Miss What-d'-you-call-'em--Miss
Costigan--don't you think you should at least have consulted my sister
as one of the principal parties in the transaction? I am speaking to
you, you see, without the least anger or assumption of authority, such
as the law and your father's will give me over you for three years to
come--but as one man of the world to another,--and I ask you, if you
think that, because you can do what you like with your mother, therefore
you have a right to do so? As you are her dependent, would it not have
been more generous to wait before you took this step, and at least to
have paid her the courtesy to ask her leave?"

Pen held down his head, and began dimly to perceive that the action on
which he had prided himself as a most romantic, generous instance of
disinterested affection, was perhaps a very selfish and headstrong piece
of folly.

"I did it in a moment of passion," said Pen, floundering; "I was not
aware what I was going to say or to do" (and in this he spoke with
perfect sincerity) "But now it is said, and I stand to it. No; I neither
can nor will recall it. I'll die rather than do so. And I--I don't want
to burthen my mother," he continued. "I'll work for myself. I'll go on
the stage, and act with her. She--she says I should do well there."

"But will she take you on those terms?" the Major interposed. "Mind, I
do not say that Miss Costigan is not the most disinterested of women:
but, don't you suppose now, fairly, that your position as a young
gentleman of ancient birth and decent expectations forms a part of the
cause why she finds your addresses welcome?"

"I'll die, I say, rather than forfeit my pledge to her," said Pen,
doubling his fists and turning red.

"Who asks you, my dear friend?" answered the imperturbable guardian. "No
gentleman breaks his word, of course, when it has been given freely. But
after all, you can wait. You owe something to your mother, something to
your family--something to me as your father's representative."

"Oh, of course," Pen said, feeling rather relieved.

"Well, as you have pledged your word to her, give us another, will you
Arthur?"

"What is