who proposed to make her a wife, it was on Bob, and not on his father, that she laid the responsibility of fulfilling the promise.
But Bob was weak as water. Love had given him one brief glimpse of the real world: then his father and mother began to talk, and the covers of the Family Bible closed like gates upon his prospect. At the end of a week he wrote--"Nothing shall shake me, dear Ethel. Still, some consideration is due to them; for I am their only son."
To this Ethel Ormiston sent no answer; but reflected "And what consideration is due to me? for you are my only lover."
For a while Bob thought of enlisting, and then of earning an honest wage as a farm-labourer; but rejected both notions, because his training had not taught him that independence is better than respectability--yea, than much broadcloth. It was not that he hankered after the fleshpots, but that he had no conception of a world without fleshpots. In the end his father came to him and said--
"Will you give up this girl?"
And Bob answered--
"I'm sorry, father, but I can't."
