“A briefless young lawyer, with a long list of impoverished brothers and sisters, aunts, uncles, and cousins! Bad enough; but not as it might have been. She can gain nothing by that connection! But then she need not lose anything either,” murmured the old man to himself. After reflecting for a few moments, with his head upon his breast, he suddenly raised his eyes and exclaimed:
“But I have never seen the young man at this house!”
“No, father!”
“Nor at any other house where we visit.”
“No, father; for although he receives many invitations to visit his friends, he accepts none. Father, I think he cannot afford to do so.”
“Cannot afford to visit! Why?”
“Visiting requires dress, and dress money. And he does so much gratuitous work now in the beginning of his career that he has but little money; and his father will not help him at all, because they differ in politics.”
“Yes, I know they do; but the young man is quite right. I agree with his views perfectly. He will make his mark in the world some of these days, and then his father will be proud of him.”
Sybil blushed with delight to hear her lover so praised by one in whose hands their happiness rested.
“But, my child, he was wrong and you were wrong to have entered into any engagement without my sanction,” said the old man very gravely.