One morning, the week after Mark’s death, Mr. Wylder asked Barbara to go with him to his study—where, indeed, about as much study went on as in a squirrel’s nest. After a solemn prologue as to its having been right and natural while she was a girl with a brother that she should be allowed a great deal of freedom, he said that now, circumstances being changed, such freedom could no longer be given her. She was now sole heiress, and must behave as an heir, namely, by consulting the interests of the family. In those interests, he continued, it was necessary that he should strengthen as much as possible his influence in the county. It was time also that, for her own sake, she should marry, and better husband or fitter son-in-law than Mr. Lestrange could not be desired. He was well-behaved and good-looking, and when Mortgrange joined with Wylder, they would have far the finest estate in the county!

Filial obligation is often a point upon which those parents lay the heaviest stress who have done the least to develop the relation between them and their children. The first duty is from the parent to the child. This unfulfilled, the duty of the child remains untaught.

“I am sorry to go against you, papa,” said Barbara, “but I cannot marry Mr. Lestrange.”

“Stuff and nonsense! Why not?”

“Because I do not love him.”

“Fiddlesticks! I did not love your mother when I married her! You don’t dislike him, I know! Now don’t tell me you do, for I won’t believe you!”

“He is always kind to me, and I am sorry he should want what is not mine to give him.”

“Not yours to give him! What do you mean by that! If it is not yours, it is mine! Have you not learned yet that when I make up my mind on an issue, it is done?”

Where husband and wife are not one, it is impossible for the daughter to be one with both, or perhaps with either. The constant and foolish bickering to which Barbara had been a witness throughout her childhood had tended to poison rather than nourish respect. Whether Barbara failed to yield as much as Mr. Wylder had a right to claim, I leave to the judgment of others, reserving my own, and remarking only that, if his judgment be founded on principles differing from mine, our judgments cannot agree.