One thing has often struck me, and that is the natural selfishness that is brought out in a father, and the feeling of half-dislike with which he looks upon the man who comes, as it were, to rob him of the soft sweet maiden whom he has had growing closer and closer round his heart. I have often tried to put myself in his place, and when I have so done I have easily felt how painful it must be to draw the line between the two natural affections there are in the girl’s heart—the love of her father and that for the man who seeks to make her his wife.
The selfish feeling is but natural, and the father must feel heart-wrung as he fancies that his child’s love is going from him fast, and he trembles with dread at the thought that his little ewe lamb is about to be taken away from the fold, to be plunged into endless trouble and care; to encounter storms from which he has shielded her heretofore; and he wonders how she would bear such troubles as have fallen to his and her mother’s lot, forgetting that every life must inevitably be one of storm and calm.
“I noted all this particularly in the case of a friend of the Smiths, a Mr Burrows, with whom and his family I became very intimate. He was a successful City man, who had engaged with great shrewdness in trade, and amassed a considerable amount of money. He and Mr Smith were great friends, and were wont to advise each other, Mr Burrows placing great faith in the sturdy sewing-machine dealer in most things; but there had been a great deal of difference in the two men, the selfishness of which I have spoken and jealousy about his daughter being the predominant points in Mr Burrows, who was lavish with his money, while Smith, who had had a far harder struggle to get on, always seemed to have an intense affection for his banking account.
“It was long after the change had taken place in Mr Burrows that I came to know so much as I did, and it was during one or other of my pleasant little runs down to his home in Sussex, where he passes all the time that he can persuade himself to steal from the City.
“Come, Miss Stoneleigh,” he used to say, “have a run down amongst the buttercups and daisies. I’m going to steal three days. Come down with me.”
“Steal!” I said smiling, “I wonder you don’t give up business and live altogether in the country.”
“Why?” he said wonderingly.
“Report says that you are very wealthy.”
“Report’s a stupid old woman!” he said sharply; “and I suppose, if the truth was known, Report was that money-grubbing, tight-fisted old screw—Smith. Confess now: wasn’t it?”
“Well, yes; I’ve heard Mr Smith say so, among others,” I replied.