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and took his
daughter home under it in triumph. Mrs. Thorpe was very silent, and
sighed dolefully once or twice, when her father's attention wandered
from her to the people passing along the street.
"You're fretting about Zack," said the old gentleman, looking round
suddenly at his daughter. "Never mind! leave it to me. I'll undertake to
beg him off this time."
"It's very disheartening and shocking to find him behaving so," said
Mrs. Thorpe, "after the careful way we've brought him up in, too!"
"Nonsense, my love! No, I don't mean that--I beg your pardon. But who
can be surprised that a child of six years old should be tired of a sermon
forty minutes long by my watch? I was tired of it myself I know,
though I wasn't candid enough to show it as the boy did. There! there!
we won't begin to argue: I'll beg Zack off this time, and we'll say no

more about it."
Mr. Goodworth's announcement of his benevolent intentions towards
Zack seemed to have very little effect on Mrs. Thorpe; but she said
nothing on that subject or any other during the rest of the dreary walk
home, through rain, fog, and mud, to Baregrove Square.
Rooms have their mysterious peculiarities of physiognomy as well as
men. There are plenty of rooms, all of much the same size, all furnished
in much the same manner, which, nevertheless, differ completely in
expression (if such a term may be allowed) one from the other;
reflecting the various characters of their inhabitants by such fine
varieties of effect in the furniture-features generally common to all, as
are often, like the infinitesimal varieties of eyes, noses, and mouths, too
intricately minute to be traceable. Now, the parlor of Mr. Thorpe's
house was neat, clean, comfortably and sensibly furnished. It was of the
average size. 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. 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),