l in his power to keep
you apart. Your living with me will not affect Mr. Hurdlestone's pocket;
and his seeing you at church will remind him, at least once a week, that
you are alive."

"Church! Can a man destitute of charity feel any pleasure in attending a
place of worship, that teaches him that his dearest enjoyment is a
deadly sin?"

"It seems a strange infatuation; but I have remarked, that, let the
weather be what it may, neither cold nor heat, nor storm nor shine, ever
keeps Mark Hurdlestone from church. He is still in the old place; his
fine grey locks flowing over his shoulders, with as proud and
aristocratic an expression on his countenance as if his head were graced
with a coronet, instead of being bound about with an old red
handkerchief, which he wears in lieu of a hat; the rest of his person
clothed in rags, which a beggar would spurn from him in disdain."

"Is he insensible to the disgust which his appearance must excite?"

"He seems perfectly at ease. His mind is too much absorbed in mental
calculations to care for the opinion of any one. If you sit in the
family pew, which I advise you to do, you will have to exercise great
self-control to avoid laughing at his odd appearance."

"I am too much humiliated by his deplorable aberration of mind to feel
the least inclination to mirth. I wish that I could learn to respect and
love him as a father should be respected and loved; but since my last
visit to Ashton my heart is hardened against him. A dislike almost
amounting to loathing, has usurped the place of the affection which
nature ever retains for those who are bound together by kindred ties."

"If you were more accustomed to witness his eccentricities you would be
less painfully alive to their absurdity. Use almost reconciles us to
anything. If you were to inhabit the same house with Mark Hurdlestone,
and were constantly to listen to his arguments on the love of money, you
might possibly fall in love with hoarding, and become like him a
worshipper of gold."

"Avarice generally produces a reaction in the minds of those who witness
its effects," said Anthony. "I will not admit the truth of your
proposition, for experience has proved that the son of a miser commonly
ends in being a spendthrift."

"With some exceptions," said Frederic Wildegrave, with a good-humored
smile. "But really, when he pleases, your father can be a sensible,
agreeable companion, and quite the gentleman. The other day I had a