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have the power of a negative upon any other which might be proposed if I could not carry my own into execution. I now put that negative upon either of these plans; Gideon must be neither a handicraftsman nor a menial servant. I do not know what I can do, but something else I will and must do for him."

Do you mean me to tell your father this? I am afraid it will displease him very much; but I am sure he will do nothing without your consent and approbation."

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"But what does she mean to do with him? To be sure, my dear, I shall not force her inelinations. You tell me and you know her better than I do—that the anxiety and distress she would suffer would do her more harm in one month than this absurd indulgence has done her good in four years. I was bewitched to listen to either of you. I felt at the time that such things only expose one to inextricable perplexities and difficulties. If we had sent the

child down-stairs at once, or, much better, put him out at some farm-house, he would have grown up naturally in the only place proper for him to occupy, and I should have been spared all this disagreeable nonsense. It's a very disagreeable thing, Mrs. Mordaunt, to be urged to act a second time against my own judgment; but I feel that in Calantha's state of health there is, as you say, some excuse for it. Well, well, I agree with you; the best thing to be done will be to send him to Mr. Singletrees' school. It's one of those mezzo termine which I hate, shifting off the difficulty of to-day upon the shoulders of to-morrow; but I see no alternative—nothing better to be done at present."

"My dear Mr. Mordaunt, I have ever found you the kindest and most indulgent of husbands and of fathers!"

"Are you pleased, Caroline?"

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Greatly pleased and deeply grateful; for nothing, you know, delights a woman," said she, smilingly, "like persuading a sensible man against his better judgment."

She had better not have said that.

Mr. Mordaunt felt ashamed to have yielded even to his beautiful wife; but her serene, good temper, calm good sense, and domestic dignity and beauty, exercised an influence over him. which all the violence of the cleverest or most aspiring scold in the world would have failed to attain.

She very rarely said what was out of place, for she had that fine perception of proprieties which we call tact.

He walked, however, away, and the only mischief that ensued from the speech was, that he disliked the poor, unoffending cause of this slight mortification more than ever.

CHAPTER VII.

"This little vault-this narrow room,
Of love and beauty is the tomb :
The dawning beam, that 'gan to cheer
Our clouded sky, lies darkened here.”

BEN JONSON.

THE point gained was no inconsiderable one, though Mr. Singletrees' school was any thing but a choice seminary for the education of youth. It was a common country school, in a village at no great distance from Mordaunt Hall, and frequented by the children of the superior class of farmers and the more wealthy tradesmen in the neighbourhood. Of Mr. Singletrees' qualifications as a tutor little was known to Calantha, and no satisfactory inquiry could she make; it was sufficient that he lay near at hand, and that

to send Gideon to him was a solution of the present difficulty, at least.

His going would relieve her father from the constant irritation which his presence in the house excited, and his education would at least be going forward in the ordinary way. Whatever the school might prove, he must reap one plain advantage by being sent there, that of being brought up like the other boys about him, whilst exposed to no worse associations, or to greater disadvantages, than others. With these reflections she must content herself. A special education she had the good sense to perceive it was impossible to hope for, and therefore vain to attempt. She must confine her efforts to obviating the evils that might arise from new circumstances, and must herself endeavour to give that higher education of the heart and character which she felt could alone prepare a boy like this to encounter and subdue the evils and difficulties that lay before and around him.

She little knew,—happily or unhappily as that may be,-like many an anxious mother, she ittle divined, to what a young child is exposed

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