hough fruitless, had indeed been so strenuous that the
subject was a sore one between them; and had the opportunity been less
palpable, she would scarcely have ventured to revert to it that night.
She had done so, however, and carried her point. He had passed his word
to her that he would undertake no more such hazards, and Dick's word was
as steadfast as Carew's. He was aimless and indolent; but as a mean man,
who brings himself to perform some act of munificence, will effect it
unsparingly, or a selfish man, "when he is about it," will be all
self-abnegation; so, when he _had_ made up his mind, his determination
was rock. Mrs. Yorke then felt sure of her son so far, and rejoiced at
it. But she was disturbed about him on other accounts. Perhaps,
notwithstanding her assertion to the contrary, she may have had some
scanty hopes of her son's success at Crompton; or perhaps his want of it
placed before her for the first time the gigantic obstacles that lay in
his social path. Were the times really gone by which she had known,
wherein personal beauty, and youth, and grace of manner could win their
way to any height? Or did she misjudge her own sex, while so sagacious
an observer of the other? Her Dick was still very young; but his
appearance should surely have done something for him even now; yet
hitherto it had won him nothing but friendships of doubtful value, one
of which, indeed, had just done him infinite hurt. Were girls with
fortunes, then, as prudent and calculating as those who were penniless,
as she had been? It did not strike her that they were infinitely more
unapproachable; or rather, such was her estimation of her son's
attractions, that she thought he had only to be seen in his opera-stall
to become the magnet of every female heart. Had she been mistaken
altogether in her plan for his future?

As she sat over the dropping embers of the fire, while the ceaseless
rain huddled against the pane without, a terrible vision crossed her
mind. She saw her son, no longer young, wan with dissipation and excess,
peevish and fretting for the luxuries which she herself, old and
decrepit, could no longer procure for him. She even heard a voice
reproaching her as the cause of their common ruin: "Why did you humor
me, woman, when I should have been corrected? Why did you bring me up to
beggary, as though I had been a prince? why have taught me nothing
whereby I could now at least earn my daily bread? Why did you let me
lavish