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58 adolescence: he was getting too old for any prospect of a military career: he had no turn for diplomacy, no taste for any of the walks open to blood and birth, and was in headlong disgrace with the fountain of goodness at Beckley Court, where he was still kept in the tacit understanding that, should Juliana inherit the place, he must be at hand to marry her instantly, after the fashion of the Jocelyns. They were an injured family; for what they gave was good, and the commercial world had not behaved honourably to them.

Now Ferdinand Laxley was just the match for Rose. Born to a title and fine estate, he was evidently fond of her, and there had been a gentle hope in the bosom of Sir Franks that the family fatality would cease, and that Rose would marry both money and blood.

From this happy delusion poor Sir Franks was awakened to hear that his daughter had plighted herself to the son of a tradesman: that, as the climax to their evil fate, she who had some blood and some money of her own—the only Jocelyn who had ever united the two—was desirous of wasting herself on one who had neither. The idea was so utterly opposed to the principles Sir Franks had been trained in, that his intellect could not grasp it. He listened to his sister, Mrs. Shorne: he listened to his wife: he agreed with all they said, though what they said was widely diverse: he consented to see and speak to Evan, and he did so, and was much the most distressed. For Sir Franks liked many things in life, and hated one thing alone—which was “bother.” A smooth world was his delight. Rose knew this, and her instruction to Evan was: “You cannot give me up—you will go, but you cannot give me up while I am faithful to you: tell him that.” She knew that to impress this fact at once on the mind of Sir Franks would be a great gain; for in his detestation of bother he would soon grow reconciled to things monstrous; and hearing the same on both sides, the matter would assume an inevitable shape to him. Mr. Second Fiddle had no difficulty in declaring the eternity of his sentiments; but he toned them with a despair Rose did not contemplate, and added also his readiness to repair, in any way possible, the evil done. He spoke of his birth and position. Sir Franks, with a gentlemanly delicacy natural to all lovers of a smooth world, begged him to see the main and the insurmountable objection. Birth was to be desired, of course, and position, and so forth: but without money how can two young people marry? Evan’s heart melted at this generous way of putting it. He said he saw it, he had no hope: he would go and be forgotten: and begged that for any annoyance his visit might have caused Sir Franks and Lady Jocelyn, they would pardon him. Sir Franks shook him by the hand, and the interview ended in an animated dialogue on the condition of the knees of Black Lymport, and on horseflesh in Portugal and Spain.

Following Evan, Rose went to her father and gave him a good hour’s excitement, after which the worthy gentleman hurried for consolation to Lady Jocelyn, whom he found reading a book of French memoirs, in her usual attitude, with her feet stretched out, as if she made a footstool of trouble. Her ladyship read him a piquant story, and Sir Franks capped it with another from memory; whereupon her ladyship held him wrong in one turn of the story, and Sir Franks rose to get the volume to verify, and while he was turning over the leaves, Lady Jocelyn told him incidentally of old Tom Cogglesby’s visit and proposition. Sir Franks found the passage, and that her ladyship was right, which it did not move her countenance to hear.

“Ah!” said he, finding it no use to pretend there was no bother in the world, “here’s a pretty pickle! Rose says she will have that fellow.”

“Hum! it’s a nuisance,” replied her ladyship. “And if she keeps her mind a couple of years, it will be a wonder.”

“Very bad for her, this sort of thing—talked about,” muttered Sir Franks. “Ferdinand was just the man.”

“Well, yes; I suppose it’s her mistake to think brains an absolute requisite,” said Lady Jocelyn, opening her book again, and scanning down a column.

Sir Franks, being imitative, adopted a similar refuge, and the talk between them was varied by quotations and choice bits from the authors they had recourse to. Both leaned back in their chairs, and spoke with their eyes on their books.

“Julia’s going to write to her mother,” said he.

“Very filial and proper,” said she.

“There’ll be a horrible hubbub, you know, Emily.”

“Most probably. I shall get the blame; cela se conçoit.”

“Young Harrington goes the day after to-morrow. Thought it better not to pack him off in a hurry.”

“And just before the pic-nic; no, certainly. I suppose it would look odd.”

“How are we to get rid of the Countess?”

“Eh? This Bautru is amusing, Franks; but he’s nothing to Vandy. Homme incomparable! On the whole I find Ménage rather dull. The Countess? what an accomplished liar that woman is! She seems to have stepped out of Tallemant’s Gallery. Concerning the Countess, I suppose you had better apply to Melville.”

“Where the deuce did this young Harrington get his breeding from?”

“He comes of a notable sire.”

“Yes, but there’s no sign of the snob in him.”

“And I exonerate him from the charge of ‘adventuring’ after Rose. George Uploft tells me—I had him in just now—that the mother is a woman of mark and strong principle. She has probably corrected the too luxuriant nature of Mel in her offspring. That is to say, in this one. Pour les autres, je ne dis pas. Well, the young man will go; and if Rose chooses to become a monument of constancy, we can do nothing. I shall give my advice; but as she has not deceived me, and she is a reasonable being, I shan’t interfere. Putting the case at the worst, they will not want money. I have no doubt Tom Cogglesby means what he