the anxious mother
think that her son's education had hardly yet been completed. With
this secondary object, but with that of keeping him out of the way of
Mary Thorne in the first place, Lady Arabella was now quite satisfied
that her son should enjoy such advantages as an education completed
at the university might give him.

With his father Frank had a long conversation; but, alas! the gist of
his father's conversation was this, that it behoved him, Frank, to
marry money. The father, however, did not put it to him in the cold,
callous way in which his lady-aunt had done, and his lady-mother.
He did not bid him go and sell himself to the first female he could
find possessed of wealth. It was with inward self-reproaches, and
true grief of spirit, that the father told the son that it was not
possible for him to do as those may do who are born really rich, or
really poor.

"If you marry a girl without a fortune, Frank, how are you to live?"
the father asked, after having confessed how deep he himself had
injured his own heir.

"I don't care about money, sir," said Frank. "I shall be just as
happy as if Boxall Hill had never been sold. I don't care a straw
about that sort of thing."

"Ah! my boy; but you will care: you will soon find that you do care."

"Let me go into some profession. Let me go to the Bar. I am sure I
could earn my own living. Earn it! of course I could, why not I as
well as others? I should like of all things to be a barrister."

There was much more of the same kind, in which Frank said all that he
could think of to lessen his father's regrets. In their conversation
not a word was spoken about Mary Thorne. Frank was not aware whether
or no his father had been told of the great family danger which was
dreaded in that quarter. That he had been told, we may surmise, as
Lady Arabella was not wont to confine the family dangers to her own
bosom. Moreover, Mary's presence had, of course, been missed. The
truth was, that the squire had been told, with great bitterness, of
what had come to pass, and all the evil had been laid at his door.
He it had been who had encouraged Mary to be regarded almost as a
daughter of the house of Greshamsbury; he it was who taught that
odious doctor--odious in all but his aptitude for good doctoring--to
think himself a fit match for the aristocracy of the county. It had
been his fault, this great necessity that Frank should marry money;
and now it was his fault that Frank w