I could scarcely listen thus far.
“I thank you, sir, but I have no disposition to be a bricklayer.”
“You must do something for yourself. You can not expect to eat the bread of idleness. I have done, and will do for you what I can—whatever is necessary;—but I have my own family to provide for. I can not rob my own child—-”
“Nor do I expect it, Mr. Clifford,” I replied hastily, and with some indignation. “It is my wish, sir, to draw as little as possible from your income and resources. I would not rob Julia Clifford of a single dollar. Nay, sir, I trust before many years to be able to refund you every copper which has been spent upon me from the moment I entered your household.”
He said hastily:—
“I wish nothing of that, Edward;—but the law is a study of years, and is expensive and unpromising in every respect. Your clothes already call for a considerable sum, and such a profession requires, more than almost any other, that a student should be well dressed.”
“I promise you, sir, that my dress shall be such as shall not trespass upon your income. I shall be governed by as much economy—”
He interrupted me to say, that
“His duty required that his brother's son should be dressed as well as his associates.”
I replied, with tolerable composure:—