“I dare say!  Catch me burying myself here again.  My dear mother, it’s a very respectable place for you and Maggie to live in, and I dare say you don’t find it dull; but the idea of my quietly sitting down here is something too absurd!”

“Papa did, and was very happy,” said Maggie.

“Yes! after he had been at Oxford,” replied Edward, a little nonplussed by this reference to one whose memory even the most selfish and thoughtless must have held in respect.

“Well! and you know you would have to go to Oxford first.”

“Maggie!  I wish you would not interfere between my mother and me.  I want to have it settled and done with, and that it will never be if you keep meddling.  Now, mother, don’t you see how much better it will be for me to go into Mr. Bish’s office?  Harry Bish has spoken to his father about it.”

Mrs. Browne sighed.

“What will Mr. Buxton say?” asked she, dolefully.

“Say!  Why don’t you see it was he who first put it into my head, by telling me that first Christmas holidays, that I should be his agent.  That would be something, would it not?  Harry Bish says he thinks a thousand a-year might ha made of it.”

His loud, decided, rapid talking overpowered Mrs. Browne; but she resigned herself to his wishes with more regrets than she had ever done before.  It was not the first case in which fluent declamation has taken the place of argument.

Edward was articled to Mr. Bish, and thus gained his point.  There was no one with power to resist his wishes, except his mother and Mr. Buxton.  The former had long acknowledged her son’s will as her law; and the latter, though surprised and almost disappointed at a change of purpose which he had never anticipated in his plans for Edward’s benefit, gave his consent, and even advanced some of the money requisite for the premium.

Maggie looked upon this change with mingled feelings.  She had always from a child pictured Edward to herself as taking her father’s place.  When she had thought of him as a man, it was as contemplative, grave, and gentle, as she remembered her father.  With all a child’s deficiency of reasoning power, she had never considered how impossible it was that a selfish, vain, and impatient boy could become a meek, humble, and pious man, merely by adopting a profession in which such qualities are required.  But now, at sixteen, she was beginning to understand all this.  Not by any process of thought, but by something more like a correct feeling, she perceived that Edward would never be the true minister of Christ.  So, more glad and thankful than sorry, though sorrow mingled with her sentiments, she learned the decision that he was to be an attorney.