"I met Mr. Laflin on the boat this morning, and was much astonished and grieved to hear of the rash step his son has chosen to take. The matter has evidently been kept from me,"--strictly speaking, it had; "I understand, though on that again I have not been consulted, that you and Mike have for some time been informally engaged to each other. Now you know my views on the theatre, and I am sure that you must see that Mike's having taken such a step must at once put an end to any such idea. Your own sense of propriety would, I am sure, tell you that, without any words from me--"
"Father!" cried Esther, in astonishment.
"You know that I considered Mike a very nice lad. His family is respectable; and he would have come into a very comfortable business, if he hadn't taken this foolish freak into his head--"
"But, father, you have laughed at his recitations, yourself, many a time, here of an evening. What difference can there be?"
"There is the difference of the theatre, the contaminating atmosphere, the people it attracts, the harm it does--your father, as you know, has never been within a theatre in his life; is it likely that he can look with calmness upon his daughter marrying a man whose livelihood is to be gained in a scandalous and debasing profession?"
"Father, I cannot listen to your talking of Mike like that. If it is wrong to make people innocently happy, to make them laugh and forget their troubles, to--to--well, if it's wrong to be Mike--I'm sorry; but, wrong or right, I love him, and nothing will ever make me give him up."
Mrs. Mesurier here interrupted, "I told you, James, how it would be. You cannot change young hearts. The times are not the same as when you and I were young; and, though I'm sure I don't want to go against you, I think you are too hard on Esther. Love is love after all--and Mike's one of the best-hearted lads that ever walked."
"Thank you, mother," said Esther, impulsively, throwing her arms round her mother's neck, and bursting into tears, "I--I will never give--give--him up."
"No, dear, no; now don't distress yourself. It will all come right. Your father doesn't quite understand." And then a great tempest of sobbing came over Esther, and swept her away to her own room.
The father and mother turned to each other with some anger.