home. There I could prepare
myself for Cambridge till the long vacation was over; and, my mother
added hesitatingly, and with a prefatory caution to spare my health,
that my father, whose income could ill afford the requisite allowance to
me, counted on my soon lightening his burden by getting a scholarship.
I felt how much provident kindness there was in all this,--even in that
hint of a scholarship, which was meant to rouse my faculties and spur
me, by affectionate incentives, to a new ambition. I was not less
delighted than grateful.

"But poor Roland," said I, "and little Blanche,--will they come with
us?"

"I fear not," said my mother; "for Roland is anxious to get back to his
tower, and in a day or two he will be well enough to move."

"Do you not think, my dear mother, that, somehow or other, this lost son
of his had something to do with Roland's illness,--that the illness was
as much mental as physical?"

"I have no doubt of it, Sisty. What a sad, bad heart that young man must
have!"

"My uncle seems to have abandoned all hope of finding him in London;
otherwise, ill as he has been, I am sure we could not have kept him at
home. So he goes back to the old tower. Poor man, he must be dull enough
there! We must contrive to pay him a visit. Does Blanche ever speak of
her brother?"

"No; for it seems they were not brought up much together,--at all
events, she does not remember him. How lovely she is! Her mother must
surely have been very handsome."

"She is a pretty child, certainly, though in a strange style of
beauty,--such immense eyes!--and affectionate, and loves Roland as she
ought."

And here the conversation dropped.

Our plans being thus decided, it was necessary that I should lose no
time in seeing Vivian and making some arrangement for the future. His
manner had lost so much of its abruptness that I thought I could venture
to recommend him personally to Trevanion; and I knew, after what had
passed, that Trevanion would make a point to oblige me. I resolved to
consult my father about it. As yet I had either never found or never
made the opportunity to talk to my father on the subject, he had been so
occupied; and if he had proposed to see my new friend, what answer could
I have made, in the teeth of Vivian's cynic objections? However, as we
were now going away, that last consideration ceased to be of importance;
and, for the first, the student had not yet entirely settled back to his
books. I t