to an extravagant man; would recommend such an abatement of family pride
as paved the way for one or two happy marriages in some instances; nay,
what was the most likely piece of conduct of all to give offence forty
years ago, he would speak up for an unjustly-used tenant; and that with
so much temperate and well-timed wisdom and good feeling, that he more
than once gained his point. He had one son, Edward. This boy was the
secret joy and pride of his father's heart. For himself he was not in
the least ambitious, but it did cost him a hard struggle to acknowledge
that his own business was too lucrative, and brought in too large an
income, to pass away into the hands of a stranger, as it would do if he
indulged his ambition for his son by giving him a college education and
making him into a barrister. This determination on the more prudent side
of the argument took place while Edward was at Eton. The lad had,
perhaps, the largest allowance of pocket-money of any boy at school; and
he had always looked forward to going to Christ Church along with his
fellows, the sons of the squires, his father's employers. It was a
severe mortification to him to find that his destiny was changed, and
that he had to return to Hamley to be articled to his father, and to
assume the hereditary subservient position to lads whom he had licked in
the play-ground, and beaten at learning.

His father tried to compensate him for the disappointment by every
indulgence which money could purchase. Edward's horses were even finer
than those of his father; his literary tastes were kept up and fostered,
by his father's permission to form an extensive library, for which
purpose a noble room was added to Mr. Wilkins's already extensive house
in the suburbs of Hamley. And after his year of legal study in London
his father sent him to make the grand tour, with something very like
carte blanche as to expenditure, to judge from the packages which were
sent home from various parts of the Continent.