r five years; and that he should
return, at the expiration of this period, to the central establishment
in London. If he made a fair use of his opportunities in China, he would
come back, while still a young man, fit for a position of trust and
emolument, and justified in looking forward, at no distant date, to a
time when the House would assist him to start in business for himself.
Such were the new prospects which--to adopt Mr. Clare's theory--now
forced themselves on the ever-reluctant, ever-helpless and
ever-ungrateful Frank. There was no time to be lost. The final answer
was to be at the office on "Monday, the twentieth": the correspondents
in China were to be written to by the mail on that day; and Frank was
to follow the letter by the next opportunity, or to resign his chance in
favor of some more enterprising young man.

Mr. Clare's reception of this extraordinary news was startling in the
extreme. The glorious prospect of his son's banishment to China appeared
to turn his brain. The firm pedestal of his philosophy sank under him;
the prejudices of society recovered their hold on his mind. He seized
Frank by the arm, and actually accompanied him to Combe-Raven, in the
amazing character of visitor to the house!

"Here I am with my lout," said Mr. Clare, before a word could be uttered
by the astonished family. "Hear his story, all of you. It has reconciled
me, for the first time in my life, to the anomaly of his existence."
Frank ruefully narrated the Chinese proposal for the second time, and
attempted to attach to it his own supplementary statement of objections
and difficulties. His father stopped him at the first word, pointed
peremptorily southeastward (from Somersetshire to China); and said,
without an instant's hesitation: "Go!" Mr. Vanstone, basking in golden
visions of his young friend's future, echoed that monosyllabic decision
with all his heart. Mrs. Vanstone, Miss Garth, even Norah herself, spoke
to the same purpose. Frank was petrified by an absolute unanimity of
opinion which he had not anticipated; and Magdalen was caught, for once
in her life, at the end of all her resources.

So far as practical results were concerned, the sitting of the family
council began and ended with the general opinion that Frank must go. Mr.
Vanstone's faculties were so bewildered by the son's sudden arrival,
the father's unexpected visit, and the news they both brought with them,
that he petitioned for an adjournment be