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214 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 all 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 was absolutely talking of marrying a pauper.

By no means in quiescence did the squire hear these charges brought against him. The Lady Arabella, in each attack, got quite as much as she gave, and, at last, was driven to retreat in a state of headache, which she declared to be chronic; and which, so she assured her daughter Augusta, must prevent her from having any more lengthened conversations with her lord—at any rate for the next three months. But though the squire may be said to have come off on the whole as victor in these combats, they did not perhaps have, on that account, the less effect upon him. He knew it was true that he had done much towards ruining his son; and he also could think of no other remedy than matrimony. It was Frank's doom, pronounced even by the voice of his father, that he must marry money.

And so Frank went off again to Cambridge, feeling himself, as he went, to be a much lesser man in Greshamsbury estimation than he had been some two months earlier, when his birthday had been celebrated. Once during his short stay at