id Mrs. Avenel, bluntly. "But to send a boy like that
to the University--where's the money to come from?"

"My dear Mrs. Avenel," said the parson, coaxingly, "the cost need not
be great at a small college at Cambridge; and if you will pay half the
expense, I will pay the other half. I have no children of my own, and
can afford it."

"That's very handsome in you, sir," said Mrs. Avenel, somewhat touched,
yet still not graciously. "But the money is not the only point."

"Once at Cambridge," continued Mr. Dale, speaking rapidly, "at
Cambridge, where the studies are mathematical,--that is, of a nature for
which he has shown so great an aptitude,--and I have no doubt he will
distinguish himself; if he does, he will obtain, on leaving, what is
called a fellowship,--that is, a collegiate dignity accompanied by an
income on which he could maintain himself until he made his way in life.
Come, Mrs. Avenel, you are well off; you have no relations nearer to you
in want of your aid. Your son, I hear, has been very fortunate."

"Sir," said--Mrs. Avenel, interrupting the parson, "it is not because
my son Richard is an honour to us, and is a good son, and has made his
fortin, that we are to rob him of what we have to leave, and give it
to a boy whom we know nothing about, and who, in spite of what you say,
can't bring upon us any credit at all."

"Why? I don't see that."

"Why!" exclaimed Mrs. Avenel, fiercely,--"why! you, know why. No, I
don't want him to rise in life: I don't want folks to be speiring and
asking about him. I think it is a very wicked thing to have put fine
notions in his head, and I am sure my daughter Fairfield could not have
done it herself. And now, to ask me to rob Richard, and bring out a
great boy--who's been a gardener or ploughman, or suchlike--to disgrace
a gentleman who keeps his carriage, as my son Richard does--I would have
you to know, sir. No! I won't do it, and there's an end of the matter."

During the last two or three minutes, and just before that approving
"good" had responded to the parson's popular sentiment, a door
communicating with an inner room had been gently opened, and stood ajar;
but this incident neither party had even noticed. But now the door was
thrown boldly open, and the traveller whom the parson had met at the inn
walked up to Mr. Dale, and said, "No! that's not the end of the matter.
You say the boy's a 'cute, clever lad?"

"Richard, have you been listening?" exclaimed Mrs