I am obliged to refuse my consent, and I must therefore ask you to abstain from visiting and from communicating with my daughter.

Yours faithfully,

Marmaduke Rowley.

Hugh Stanbury, Esq.’

This letter was directed to Stanbury at the office of the D. R., and Sir Marmaduke, as he wrote the pernicious address, felt himself injured in that he was compelled to write about his daughter to a man so circumstanced.  Stanbury, when he got the letter, read it hastily and then threw it aside.  He knew what it would contain before he opened it.  He had heard enough from Lady Rowley to be aware that Sir Marmaduke would not welcome him as a son-in-law; Indeed, he had never expected such welcome.  He was half-ashamed of his own suit because of the lowliness of his position, half-regretful that he should have induced such a girl as Nora Rowley to give up for his sake her hopes of magnificence and splendour.  But Sir Marmaduke’s letter did not add anything to this feeling.  He read it again, and smiled as he told himself that the father would certainly be very weak in the hands of his daughter.  Then he went to work again at his article with a persistent resolve that so small a trifle as such a note should have no effect upon his daily work.  ’Of course Sir Marmaduke would refuse his consent.  Of course it would be for him, Stanbury, to marry the girl he loved in opposition to her father.  Her father indeed!  If Nora chose to take him—­and as to that he was very doubtful as to Nora’s wisdom—­but if Nora would take him, what was any father’s opposition to him.  He wanted nothing from Nora’s father.  He was not looking for money with his wife, nor for fashion, nor countenance.  Such a Bohemian was he that he would be quite satisfied if his girl would walk out to him, and become his wife, with any morning-gown on and with any old hat that might come, readiest to hand.  He wanted neither cards, nor breakfast, nor carriages, nor fine clothes.  If his Nora should choose to come to him as she was, he having had all previous necessary arrangements duly made, such as calling of banns or procuring of licence, if possible, he thought that a father’s opposition would almost add something to the pleasure of the occasion.  So he pitched the letter on one side, and went on with his article.  And he finished his article; but it may be doubted whether it was completed with the full strength and pith needed for moving the pulses of the national mind as they should be moved by leading articles in the D. R. As he was writing he was thinking of Nora and thinking of the letter which Nora’s father had sent to him.  Trivial as was the letter, he could not keep himself from repeating the words of it to himself. ’"Need hardly point out,” oh; needn’t he?  Then why does he?  Refusing his consent!  I wonder what the old buffers think is the meaning of their consent, when they are speaking of daughters old enough to manage for themselves?