hottest of
the year. The vicar, heavy-laden man, had sat down in his study to
worry over parish accounts. When the door opened to admit his wife, he
quivered with annoyance. Mrs. Lashmar had a genius for the malapropos.
During breakfast, when her talk would have mattered little, she had
kept silence; now that her husband particularly wished to be alone with
his anxieties, she entered with an air forboding long discourse.

"Twenty-three pounds, four shillings and sixpence," muttered the vicar,
as he passed a handkerchief over his moist forehead. "Dear me! how
close it is! Twenty-three--"

"If Dyce is elected," pursued the lady, "we must celebrate the occasion
in some really striking way. Of course there must be a dinner for all
our poor--"

"What I want to know," interrupted Mr. Lashmar, with mild
irritableness, "is, how he proposes to meet his expenses, and what he
is going to live upon. If he is still looking to _me_--I hope you
haven't encouraged him in any hope of that kind?"

"Of course not. In my last letter I expressly reminded him that our
affairs were getting into a lamentable muddle. Of course, if _I_ had
had the management of them, this wouldn't have come about.--Do you know
what I have been thinking? It might be an advantage to Dyce if you made
friends with the clergy at Hollingford. Couldn't you go over one day,
and call on the rector. I see he's a Cambridge man, but--"

"Really," cried Mr. Lashmar, half-distraught, "I must beg you to let me
get this work done in quietness. By some extraordinary error--"

A knock sounded at the door, followed by a man's voice.

"May I come in?"

"There you are!" Mrs. Lashmar exclaimed. "It's Dyce himself. Come in!
Come in! Why, who could have thought you would get here so early!"

"I chose the early train for the sake of coolness," answered Dyce, who
shook hands with his parents. "The weather is simply tropical. And two
days ago we were shivering. What is there to drink, mother?"

Mrs. Lashmar took her son to the dining-room, and, whilst he was
refreshing himself, talked of the career before him. Her sanguine mind
saw him already at Westminster, and on the way to high distinction.

"There's just one thing I'm anxious about," she said, sinking her
voice. "You know the state of your father's affairs. It happens most
unfortunately, just when a little help would be so important to you.
For years I have foreseen it, Dyce. Again and again I have urged
prudence; but y