If you are willing to reside at our family seat with my mother, I
will assure you of a suitable allowance during her lifetime, and--'

Nothing was more intolerable to a man like James than a shower of
obligations; and his spirit, angered at the very length of the
address, caught at the first opening for avoiding gratitude, and
beheld in the last proposal an absolute bribe to make him sacrifice
his sacred ministry, and he burst forth, 'Sir, I am much obliged to
you, but no offers shall induce me to forsake the duties of my
calling.'

'You mistake, if you think I want anything unclerical. No occasion
to hunt--Mr. Tresham used in my day--no one thought the worse of him
-unlucky your taking Orders.'

'There is no use in entering on that point,' said James. 'No other
course was left open to me, and my profession cannot be taken up nor
laid down as a matter of convenience.'

'Young men are taught to think more seriously than they were in our
day,' said Mrs. Frost. 'I told you that you must not try to make him
turn squire.'

'Well! well! good living may be had perhaps. Move to Cheveleigh, and
look out for it at leisure, if nothing else will content him. But
we'll have this drudgery given up. I'll not go home and show my
nephew, heir of the Dynevors, keeping a third-rate grammar-school,'
said Oliver, with his one remaining Eton quality of contempt for
provincial schools.