stirring, arguing, deaf to reason, insatiable of appetite, obstructing
progress, masters in their brute force----"

"But," said I, interrupting my father, "what can I do to help the
State. I feel no vocation for playing Joan of Arc in the interests of
the family, or for finding a martyr's block in the convent."

"You are a little hussy," cried my father. "If I speak sensibly to
you, you are full of jokes; when I jest, you talk like an
ambassadress."

"Love lives on contrasts," was my reply.

And he laughed till the tears stood in his eyes.

"You will reflect on what I have told you; you will do justice to the
large and confiding spirit in which I have broached the matter, and
possibly events may assist my plans. I know that, so far as you are
concerned, they are injurious and unfair, and this is the reason why I
appeal for your sanction of them less to your heart and your
imagination than to your reason. I have found more judgment and
commonsense in you than in any one I know----"

"You flatter yourself," I said, with a smile, "for I am every inch
your child!"

"In short," he went on, "one must be logical. You can't have the end
without the means, and it is our duty to set an example to others.
From all this I deduce that you ought not to have money of your own
till your younger brother is provided for, and I want to employ the