increased. At college he had been successful, and left Cambridge with a
college fellowship. He therefore left it with one hundred and
seventy-five pounds added to his income, and was considered by all those
at Buston Rectory to be a rich young man.

But Harry did not find that his combined income amounted to riches amid
a world of idleness. At Buston he was constantly told by his uncle of
the necessity of economy. Indeed, Mr. Prosper, who was a sickly little
man about fifty years of age, always spoke of himself as though he
intended to live for another half-century. He rarely walked across the
park to the rectory, and once a week, on Sundays, entertained the
rectory family. A sad occasion it generally was to the elder of the
rectory children, who were thus doomed to abandon the loud pleasantries
of their own home for the sober Sunday solemnities of the Hall. It was
not that the Squire of Buston was peculiarly a religious man, or that
the rector was the reverse: but the parson was joyous, whereas the other
was solemn. The squire,--who never went to church, because he was supposed
to be ill,--made up for the deficiency by his devotional tendencies when
the children were at the Hall. He read through a sermon after dinner,
unintelligibly and even inaudibly. At this his brother-in-law, who had
an evening service in his own church, of course never was present; but
Mrs. Annesley and the girls were there, and the younger children. But
Harry Annesley had absolutely declined; and his uncle having found out
that he never attended the church service, although he always left the
Hall with his father, made this a ground for a quarrel. It at last came
to pass that Mr. Prosper, who was jealous and irritable, would hardly
speak to his nephew; but the two hundred and fifty pounds went on, with
many bickerings on the subject between the parson and the squire. Once,
when the squire spoke of discontinuing it, Harry's father reminded him
that the young man had been brought up in absolute idleness, in