"I will not give you any encouragement," said Mary, reddening. "Your

friends would dislike it, and so would mine. My father would think it

a disgrace to me if I accepted a man who got into debt, and would not

work!"

Fred was stung, and released her hand. She walked to the door, but

there she turned and said: "Fred, you have always been so good, so

generous to me. I am not ungrateful. But never speak to me in that

way again."

"Very well," said Fred, sulkily, taking up his hat and whip. His

complexion showed patches of pale pink and dead white. Like many a

plucked idle young gentleman, he was thoroughly in love, and with a

plain girl, who had no money! But having Mr. Featherstone's land in

the background, and a persuasion that, let Mary say what she would, she

really did care for him, Fred was not utterly in despair.

When he got home, he gave four of the twenties to his mother, asking

her to keep them for him. "I don't want to spend that money, mother.

I want it to pay a debt with. So keep it safe away from my fingers."

"Bless you, my dear," said Mrs. Vincy. She doted on her eldest son and

her youngest girl (a child of six), whom others thought her two

naughtiest children. The mother's eyes are not always deceived in

their partiality: she at least can best judge who is the tender,

filial-hearted child. And Fred was certainly very fond of his mother.

Perhaps it was his fondness for another person also that made him

particularly anxious to take some security against his own liability to

spend the hundred pounds. For the creditor to whom he owed a hundred

and sixty held a firmer security in the shape of a bill signed by

Mary's father.




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