engineering to trade. In spite
of this conviction; in spite of headaches caused by sitting on a high
stool and stooping over ledgers in unwholesome air; in spite of want
of society, and hasty breakfasts, and bad dinners at chop-houses, his
attendance at the office was regular, and his diligence at the desk
unremitting. The head of the department in which he was working might be
referred to if any corroboration of this statement was desired. Such was
the general tenor of the letters; and Frank's correspondent and Frank's
father differed over them as widely as usual. Mr. Vanstone accepted them
as proofs of the steady development of industrious principles in the
writer. Mr. Clare took his own characteristically opposite view. "These
London men," said the philosopher, "are not to be tri fled with by
louts. They ha ve got Frank by the scruff of the neck--he can't wriggle
himself free--and he makes a merit of yielding to sheer necessity."

The three months' interval of Frank's probation in London passed less
cheerfully than usual in the household at Combe-Raven.

As the summer came nearer and nearer, Mrs. Vanstone's spirits, in spite
of her resolute efforts to control them, became more and more depressed.

"I do my best," she said to Miss Garth; "I set an example of
cheerfulness to my husband and my children--but I dread July." Norah's
secret misgivings on her sister's account rendered her more than usually
serious and uncommunicative, as the year advanced. Even Mr. Vanstone,
when July drew nearer, lost something of his elasticity of spirit. He
kept up appearances in his wife's presence--but on all other occasions
there was now a perceptible shade of sadness in his look and manner.
Magdalen was so changed since Frank's departure that she helped the
general depression, instead of relieving it. All her movements had grown
languid; all her usual occupations were pursued with the same weary
indifference; she spent hours alone in her own room; she lost her
interest in being brightly and prettily dressed; her eyes were heavy,
her nerves were irritable, her complexion was altered visibly for the
worse--in one word, she had become an oppression and a weariness to
herself and to all about her. Stoutly as Miss Garth contended with these
growing domestic difficulties, her own spirits suffered in the effort.
Her memory reverted, oftener and oftener, to the March morning when the
master and mistress of the house had departed for London,