“I don’t think we should afford it, dear papa,” she said.  “We have agreed that I had better stay with you for the present, and let Frank make his way.”

Then a thought occurred to Sir Harry.  “Is this the Poynsetts’ doing?”

“No,” said Eleonora, stoutly.  “It is mine.  I know that—­oh! papa, forgive me!—­the things and people you like would not be good for Frank, and I will not leave you nor bring him into them.  Never!”

Sir Harry swore—­almost for the first time before her—­that this was that old hag Mrs. Poynsett’s doing, and that she would make his child abandon him in his old age.  He would not have his daughter dragged into a long engagement.  Wait—­he knew what waiting meant—­ wait for his death; but they should have her now or not at all; and he flung away from her and her entreaties to announce his determination to the suitor’s family.

He did not find this very easy to accomplish.  Frank’s ears were quite impervious to all his storming, and if he was to reduce his words to paper, they came less easily.  Miles, to whom he tried to speak as a man of the world, would only repeat that his mother would never consent to the marriage, unless the young couple were to live alone; nay, he said, with a grain of justice, he thought that had been Sir Harry’s own view in a former case.  Would he like to see Mrs. Poynsett? she is quite ready.

Again Sir Harry quailed at the notion of encountering Mrs. Poynsett; but Miles, who had a great idea that his mother could deal with everybody, and was the better for doing so, would not let him off, and ushered him in, then stood behind her chair, and thoroughly enjoyed the grand and yet courteous way in which she reduced to nothing Sir Harry’s grand beneficence in eking out the young folks’ income with his own.  She knew very well that even when the estate was sold, at the highest estimate, Eleonora would have the barest maintenance, and that he could hardly expect what the creditors now allowed him, and she made him understand that she knew this, and that she had a right to make conditions, since Frank, like her other sons, could not enter into possession of his share of his father’s fortune unless he married with her consent.

And when he spoke of breaking off the engagement, she was callous, and said that he must do as he pleased, though after young people were grown up, she thought the matter ought to rest with themselves.  She did not wish her son to marry till his character was more confirmed.

He went home very angry, and yet crest-fallen, sought out Eleonora, and informed her of his command, that her engagement should be broken off.

“I do not know how that can be done, papa,” said Eleonora.  “We have never exactly made an engagement; we do not want to marry at once, and we could not help loving each other if we tried.”

“Humph!  And if I laid my commands on you never to marry into that family?”