"I will not give you any encouragement," said Mary, reddening.
"Your friends would dislike it, and so would mine. My father would
think it a disgrace to me if I accepted a man who got into debt,
and would not work!"

Fred was stung, and released her hand. She walked to the door,
but there she turned and said: "Fred, you have always been so good,
so generous to me. I am not ungrateful. But never speak to me in
that way again."

"Very well," said Fred, sulkily, taking up his hat and whip.
His complexion showed patches of pale pink and dead white.
Like many a plucked idle young gentleman, he was thoroughly
in love, and with a plain girl, who had no money! But having
Mr. Featherstone's land in the background, and a persuasion that,
let Mary say what she would, she really did care for him, Fred was
not utterly in despair.

When he got home, he gave four of the twenties to his mother, asking her
to keep them for him. "I don't want to spend that money, mother.
I want it to pay a debt with. So keep it safe away from my fingers."

"Bless you, my dear," said Mrs. Vincy. She doted on her eldest son
and her youngest girl (a child of six), whom others thought her two
naughtiest children. The mother's eyes are not always deceived
in their partiality: she at least can best judge who is the tender,
filial-hearted child. And Fred was certainly very fond of his mother.
Perhaps it was his fondness for another person also that made him
particularly anxious to take some security against his own liability