Do, Heaven bless you, my dear child, make up your mind to please your father, and to be a man and a merchant at once." I felt at that instant a strong inclination to submit, and to make Owen happy by requesting him to tell my father that I resigned myself to his disposal.

But pride--pride, the source of so much that is good and so much that is evil in our course of life, prevented me.

My acquiescence stuck in my throat; and while I was coughing to get it up, my father's voice summoned Owen.

He hastily left the room, and the opportunity was lost.
My father was methodical in everything.

At the very same time of the day, in the same apartment, and with the same tone and manner which he had employed an exact month before, he recapitulated the proposal he had made for taking me into partnership, and assigning me a department in the counting-house, and requested to have my final decision.