It had the usual side-board, dining-table, looking-glass, scroll fender, marble chimney-piece with a clock on it, carpet with a drugget over it, and wire window-blinds to keep people from looking in, characteristic of all respectable London parlors of the middle class.

And yet it was an inveterately severe-looking room--a room that seemed as if it had never been convivial, never uproarious, never anything but sternly comfortable and serenely dull--a room which appeared to be as unconscious of acts of mercy, and easy unreasoning over-affectionate forgiveness to offenders of any kind--juvenile or otherwise--as if it had been a cell in Newgate, or a private torturing chamber in the Inquisition.

Perhaps Mr.Goodworth felt thus affected by the parlor (especially in November weather) as soon as he entered it--for, although he had promised to beg Zack off, although Mr.Thorpe was sitting alone by the table and accessible to petitions, with a book in his hand, the old gentleman hesitated uneasily for a minute or two, and suffered his daughter to speak first.
"Where is Zack ?" asked Mrs.Thorpe, glancing quickly and nervously all round her.
"He is locked up in my dressing-room," answered her husband without taking his eyes off the book.
"In your dressing-room!" echoed Mrs.Thorpe, looking as startled and horrified as if she had received a blow instead of an answer; "in your dressing-room! Good heavens, Zachary! how do you know the child hasn't got at your razors ?" "They are locked up," rejoined Mr.Thorpe, with the mildest reproof in his voice, and the mournfullest self-possession in his manner.

"I took care before I left the boy, that he should get at nothing which could do him any injury.

He is locked up, and will remain locked up, because"-- "I say, Thorpe! won't you let him off this time ?" interrupted Mr.
Goodworth, boldly plunging head foremost, with his petition for mercy, into the conversation.
"If you had allowed me to proceed, sir," said Mr.Thorpe, who always called his father-in-law _Sir,_ "I should have simply remarked that, after having enlarged to my son (in such terms, you will observe, as I thought best fitted to his comprehension) on the disgrace to his parents and himself of his behavior this morning, I set him as a task three verses to learn out of the 'Select Bible Texts for Children;' choosing the verses which seemed most likely, if I may trust my own judgment on the point, to impress on him what his behavior ought to be for the future in church.