'I hope we may yet agree in many things,' said Rowland gently. 'At present, all I wish you to do is to pay your debts, go to London, take out your stamps, and become an attorney.'
'I am the best judge of that, and shall be my own master now. At all events, I can make some people ashamed of themselves.'
'I only wish to advise you for your good, now that you are your own master. Your poor father begged me—'
'Oh, Rowland, I can't stand any more about my father. Everybody knows what he was, and, I suppose, nobody expects me to live in the same line. I am emancipated, thank heaven! and the world shall soon know it.'
'Still, he was your father.'
'No one knows that better than I do, I should imagine; but if you expect me to mourn as others do for a parent, you will be disappointed. He never showed me one token of love, or acted by me as a father from the day of my birth till his death.'
'At least he has left you and your mother handsomely provided for, and with his last words, hoped that you were now very steady.'
'He did! I wonder who dares to say that I am not steady? But how do you know how we are provided for?'
'He begged me to write down what he was worth. I will give it you at some future period, but not now.'
'Why not now?'