er's
authority. His father thoroughly despised his brother-in-law, and looked
down upon him as an absolute ass. But he was reticent, only dropping a
word here and there, out of deference, perhaps, to his wife, and from a
feeling lest his son might be deficient in wise courtesy, if he were
encouraged to laugh at his benefactor. He had said a word or two as to a
profession when Harry left Cambridge, but the word or two had come to
nothing. In those days the uncle had altogether ridiculed the idea, and
the mother, fond of her son, the fellow and the heir, had altogether
opposed the notion. The rector himself was an idle, good-looking,
self-indulgent man,--a man who read a little and understood what he read,
and thought a little and understood what he thought, but who took no
trouble about anything. To go through the world comfortably with a
rather large family and a rather small income was the extent of his
ambition. In regard to his eldest son he had begun well. Harry had been
educated free, and had got a fellowship. He had never cost his father a
shilling. And now the eldest of two grown-up daughters was engaged to be
married to the son of a brewer living in the little town of Buntingford.
This also was a piece of good-luck which the rector accepted with a
thankful heart. There was another grown-up girl, also pretty, and then a
third girl not grown up and the two boys who were at present at school
at Royston. Thus burdened, the Rev. Mr. Annesley went through the world
with as jaunty a step as was possible, making but little of his
troubles, but anxious to make as much as he could of his advantages. Of
these, the position of Harry was the brightest, if only Harry would be
careful to guard it. It was quite out of the question that he should
find an income for Harry if the squire stopped the two hundred and fifty
pounds per annum which he at present allowed him.

Then there was Harry's mother, who had already very frequently
discounted the good things which were to fall to Harry's lot. She was a
dear, good, motherly woman, all whose geese were certainly counted to be
swans. And of all swans Harry was the whitest; whereas, in purity of
plumage, Mary, the eldest daughter, who had won the affections of the
young Buntingford brewer, was the next. That Harry's allowance should be
stopped would be almost as great a misfortune as though Mr. Thoroughbung
were to break his neck out hunting with the Puckeridge hounds,--an
amusement w