“Oh, yes, there are,” said the old man.
“I see you are not willing to have me go,” said Halleck, rising in uncontrollable irritation. “But I wish you wouldn't all take this tone with me!”
“We haven't taken any tone with you, Ben,” said his mother, with pleading tenderness.
“I think Anna has decidedly taken a tone,” said Olive.
Anna did not retort, but “What tone?” demanded Louisa, in her behalf.
“Hush, children,” said their mother.
“Well, well,” suggested his father to Ben. “Think it over, think it over. There's no hurry.”
“I've thought it over; there is hurry,” retorted Halleck. “If I go, I must go at once.”
His mother arrested her thread, half drawn through the seam, letting her hand drop, while she glanced at him.
“It isn't so much a question of your giving up the law, Ben, as of your giving up your family and going so far away from us all,” said his father. “That's what I shouldn't like.”