Fred's mind, on the other hand, was busy with an anxiety which
even his ready hopefulness could not immediately quell. He saw
no way of eluding Featherstone's stupid demand without incurring
consequences which he liked less even than the task of fulfilling it.
His father was already out of humor with him, and would be still
more so if he were the occasion of any additional coolness between
his own family and the Bulstrodes. Then, he himself hated having
to go and speak to his uncle Bulstrode, and perhaps after drinking
wine he had said many foolish things about Featherstone's property,
and these had been magnified by report. Fred felt that he made
a wretched figure as a fellow who bragged about expectations from
a queer old miser like Featherstone, and went to beg for certificates
at his bidding. But--those expectations! He really had them,
and he saw no agreeable alternative if he gave them up; besides,
he had lately made a debt which galled him extremely, and old
Featherstone had almost bargained to pay it off. The whole affair
was miserably small: his debts were small, even his expectations
were not anything so very magnificent. Fred had known men to whom he
would have been ashamed of confessing the smallness of his scrapes.
Such ruminations naturally produced a streak of misanthropic bitterness.
To be born the son of a Middlemarch manufacturer, and inevitable
heir to nothing in particular, while such men as Mainwaring and
Vyan--certainly life was a poor business, when a spirited young fellow,
with a good appetite for the best of everything, had so poor an outlook.

It had not occurred to Fred that the introduction of Bulstrode's name
in the matter was a fiction of old Featherstone's; nor could this
have made any difference to his position. He saw plainly enough
that the old man wanted to exercise his power by tormenting him