One morning, the week after Mark's death, Mr. Wylder desired Barbara to go with him to his study—where indeed about as much study went on as in a squirrel's nest—and there, after solemn prologue as to its having been right and natural while she was but a girl with a brother that she should be allowed a great deal of freedom, stated that now, circumstances being changed, such freedom could no longer be given her: she was now sole heiress, and must do as an heir would have had to do, namely, consult the interests of the family. In those interests, he continued, it was necessary 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 both well behaved and good-looking, and when Mortgrange was one with Wylder, would have by far the finest estate in the county!
Filial obligation is 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 shall not believe you!”
“He is always very 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 to a thing, that thing is done! And where I have a right, I am not one to waive it!”
Where husband and wife are not one, it is impossible for the daughter to be one with both, or perhaps with either; and the constant and foolish bickering to which Barbara had been a witness throughout her childhood, had tended rather to poison than nourish respect. Whether Barbara failed to yield as much as Mr. Wylder had a right to claim, I leave to the judgment of my reader, reserving my own, and remarking only that, if his judgment be founded on principles differing from mine, our judgments cannot agree. The idea of parent must be venerated, and may cast a glow upon the actual parent, himself nowise venerable, so that the heart of a daughter may ache with the longing to see her father such that she could love and worship him as she would; but when it comes to life and action, the will of such a parent, if it diverge from what seems to the child true and right, ought to weigh nothing. A parent is not a maker, is not God. We must leave father and mother and all for God, that is, for what is right, which is his very will—only let us be sure it is for God, and not for self. If the parent has been the parent of good thoughts and right judgments in the child, those good thoughts and right judgments will be on the parent's side: if he has been the parent of evil thoughts and false judgments, they may be for him or against him, but in the end they will work solely for division. Any general decay of filial manners must originate with the parents.
“I am not a child. I am a woman,” said Barbara; “and I owe it to him who made me a woman, to take care of her.”