of
quartz, and understood well the meaning of two ounces to the ton,--that
glittering boast by which Crinkett had at first thought to allure him.
From time to time he sent money home, paying back to his father and to
Bolton's bank what had been borrowed on the estate. For there had passed
between them many communications respecting Folking. The extravagances
of the son became almost the delight of the father, when the father had
become certain of the son's reform. There had been even jocular
reference to Davis, and a complete understanding as to the amount of
money to be given to the nephew in compensation for the blighted hopes
as to the reversion of the property.

Why it should have been that these years of absence should have endeared
to John Caldigate a place which, while it was his home, had always been
distasteful to him, I cannot perhaps explain to those readers who have
never strayed far from their original nests;--and to those who have been
wanderers I certainly need not explain it. As soon as he felt that he
could base the expression of his desires as to Folking on the foundation
of substantial remittances, he was not slow to say that he should like
to keep the place. He knew that he had no right to the reversion, but
perhaps his father would sympathise with his desire to buy back his
right. His father, with all his political tenets as to land, with his
often-expressed admiration as to the French system, with his loud
denunciations of the absurdity of binding a special family to a special
fraction of the earth's surface, did sympathise with him so strongly,
that he at once accepted the arrangement. 'I think that his conduct has
given him a right to demand it,' he said to Mr. Bolton.

'I don't quite see that. Money certainly gives a man great powers. If he
has money enough he can buy the succession to Folking if you choose to
sell it to him.'

'I mean as my son,' said the father somewhat proudly. 'He was the heir.'

'But he ceased to be so,--by his own doing. I advised you to think
longer over it before you allowed him to dispossess himself.'

'It certainly has been all for the best.'

'I hope so. But when you talk of his right, I am bound to say that he
has none. Folking is now yours, without encumbrance, and you can give it
to whom you please.'

'It was he who paid off the mortgage.'

'You have told me that he sent you part of the money;--but that's
between you and him. I am very glad, Caldigate, tha