 this chair without
assistance, that I am some broken-spirited dependent creature, without the
courage or power to do what I may think best for my own child. Still the power
to hint a wish! I hope so!«
    »Pardon me,« returned Ralph, who thoroughly knew his man, and had taken his
ground accordingly; »you do not hear me out. I was about to say that your
hinting a wish, even hinting a wish, would surely be equivalent to commanding.«
    »Why, of course it would,« retorted Mr. Bray, in an exasperated tone. »If
you don't happen to have heard of the time, sir, I tell you that there was a
time, when I carried every point in triumph against her mother's whole family,
although they had power and wealth on their side, by my will alone.«
    »Still,« rejoined Ralph, as mildly as his nature would allow him, »you have
not heard me out. You are a man yet qualified to shine in society, with many
years of life before you; that is, if you lived in freer air, and under brighter
skies, and chose your own companions. Gaiety is your element, you have shone in
it before. Fashion and freedom for you. France, and an annuity that would
support you there in luxury, would give you a new lease of life, would transfer
you to a new existence. The town rang with your expensive pleasures once, and
you could blaze on a new scene again, profiting by experience, and living a
little at others' cost, instead of letting others live at yours. What is there
on the reverse side of the picture? What is there? I don't know which is the
nearest churchyard, but a gravestone there, wherever it is, and a date, perhaps
two years hence, perhaps twenty. That's all.«
    Mr. Bray rested his elbow on the arm of his chair, and shaded his face with
his hand.
    »I speak plainly,« said Ralph, sitting down beside him, »because I feel
strongly. It's my interest that you should marry your daughter to my friend
Gride, because then he sees me paid - in part, that is. I don't disguise it. I
acknowledge it openly. But what interest have you in recommending her to such a
step? Keep that in view. She might object, remonstrate, shed tears, talk of his
being too old, and plead that her life would
