it in his teeth that he had failed to take a degree. It was known of the
Shands that they always made the best of everything.

When Caldigate got out of the railway carriage at Pollington, he was
still melancholy with the remembrance of all that he had done and all
that he had lost, and he expected to find something of the same feeling
at his friend's house. But before he had been there an hour he was
laughing with the girls as though such an enterprise as theirs was the
best joke in the world. And when a day and a night had passed, Mrs.
Shand was deep among his shirts and socks, and had already given him
much advice about flannel and soft soap. 'I know Maria would like to go
out with you,' said the youngest daughter on the third day, a girl of
twelve years old, who ought to have known better, and who, nevertheless,
knew more than she ought to have done.

'Indeed Maria would like nothing of the kind,' said the young lady in
question.

'Only, Mr. Caldigate, of course you would have to marry her.' Then the
child was cuffed, and Maria declared that the proposed arrangement would
suit neither her nor Mr. Caldigate in the least. The eldest daughter,
Harriet, was engaged to marry a young clergyman in the neighbourhood,
which event, however, was to be postponed till he had got a living; and
the second, Matilda, was under a cloud because she would persist in
being in love with Lieutenant Postlethwaite, of the Dragoons, whose
regiment was quartered in the town. Maria was the third. All these
family secrets were told to him quite openly as well as the fact that
Josh, the third son, was to become a farmer because he could not be got
to learn the multiplication table.