I don't know that there is anything else to be said.' 'Not about business, sir.' 'And it is business, I suppose, that has brought you here,--and to Cambridge.

I do not know what little things you have of your own in the house.' 'Not much, sir.' 'If there be anything that you wish to take, take it.

But with you now, I suppose, money is the only possession that has any value.' 'I should like to have the small portrait of you,--the miniature.' 'The miniature of me,' said the father, almost scoffingly, looking up at his son's face, suspiciously.

And yet, though he would not show it, he was touched.

Only if this were a ruse on the part of the young man, a mock sentiment, a little got-up theatrical pretence,--then,--then how disgraced he would be in his own estimation at having been moved by such mockery! The son stood square before his father, disdaining any attempt to evince a supplicating tenderness either by his voice or by his features.