He flatly refused to learn what I told him.

It was, of course, quite impossible to allow my authority to be set at defiance by my own child (whose disobedient disposition has always, God knows, been a source of constant trouble and anxiety to me); so I locked him up, and locked up he will remain until he has obeyed me.

My dear," (turning to his wife and handing her a key), "I have no objection, if you wish, to your going and trying what _you_ can do towards overcoming the obstinacy of this unhappy child." Mrs.Thorpe took the key, and went up stairs immediately--went up to do what all women have done, from the time of the first mother; to do what Eve did when Cain was wayward in his infancy, and cried at her breast--in short, went up to coax her child.
Mr.Thorpe, when his wife closed the door, carefully looked down the open page on his knee for the place where he had left off--found it--referred back a moment to the last lines of the preceding leaf--and then went on with his book, not taking the smallest notice of Mr.
Goodworth.
"Thorpe!" cried the old gentleman, plunging head-foremost again, into his son-in-law's reading this time instead of his talk, "You may say what you please; but your notion of bringing up Zack is a wrong one altogether." With the calmest imaginable expression of face, Mr.Thorpe looked up from his book; and, first carefully putting a paper-knife between the leaves, placed it on the table.

He then crossed one of his legs over the other, rested an elbow on each arm of his chair, and clasped his hands in front of him.

On the wall opposite hung several lithographed portraits of distinguished preachers, in and out of the Establishment--mostly represented as very sturdily-constructed men with bristly hair, fronting the spectator interrogatively and holding thick books in their hands.