'But, Jem, you could be so useful in the parish! and your uncle could
not wish you to do anything unhandsome by the trustees--'

'I wish him to do nothing, ma'am,' said Oliver. 'If he is too high
and mighty to accept a favour, it is his own loss. We can do without
him, if he prefers the Fitzjocelyn patronage. Much good may it do
him!'

James deigned no answer, looked at his watch, and found it time to
return to the school.

Oliver broke out into angry exclamations, and his mother did her
utmost to soothe him. He had no turn for being a country-gentleman,
he was fit for nothing but his counting-house, and he intended to
return thither as soon as he had installed his mother at Cheveleigh;
and so entirely did all his plans hinge upon his nephew, that even
now he was persuaded to hold out his forgiveness, on condition that
James would apologize, resign the school, and call himself Dynevor.

Mrs. Frost hoped that Isabel would prevail on her husband to listen
favourably; but Isabel gloried in his impracticability, and would
have regarded any attempt at mediation as an unworthy effort to turn
him aside from the path of duty. She replied, that she would never
say a word to change his notions of right, and she treated poor
Oliver with all the lofty reserve that she had formerly practised
upon possible suitors.

When Fitzjocelyn came in the afternoon to take leave, before his
return to London, Mrs. Frost begged him to use his influence with