in which he was too apt to plunge.  She was beautiful enough even for him to mate with; she was better born and better trained than he; for old Jacob Aird was none of those irregular geniuses of the pencil, addicted to gin-punch and Shelley, and selfish to the core, but a plain honest man, who had brought up his daughter well—­in tastes a lady, but housewifely and wisely too.  As for the inequality of wealth between them, her son would have enough for both; and it was certain that Agnes did not love him for his expectations, for they were unknown alike to her and him.  Harry had never led him to believe that he would be a rich man; her love, as we have said, had made her wise in all that concerned Charley; and as for his father, he was naturally reticent in such matters.  He did not spend one fifth part of his income.  His habits were as inexpensive as they had been in the old days at Gethin; and if the village folks had ever hinted to the young fellow of his father’s wealth, he had no conception of its real extent.  The idea itself, too, would have had no great interest for him; he liked to have money for the pleasure of spending it, but it was never the object of his thoughts; he was too careless, too much the creature of the hour, to forecast his future.  His mother gave him all she could, but he was aware that it was obtained with difficulty; the cost of his very education, which he had received at a school near Turlock, had, he knew, been grudged; his father had often grumbled that it was money thrown away, for, “Look at me,” said he; “I taught myself.”  There was always, in short, a tightness in the Coe money market that augured any thing but pecuniary prosperity.

The very fact of their having taken lodgings at Mr. Aird’s house, situated as it was in Soho, a respectable but far from fashionable locality, argued but moderate means, and placed the artist out of all suspicion of setting his pretty daughter as a matrimonial snare for Charley.  She was pretty enough and good enough, the old man justly thought, for him or for his betters; and though he regarded the good-will which the young people evidently entertained for one another with favor, he saw in it neither condescension nor advantage.  Solomon, much engaged in business affairs away from home, and estimating, besides, the power of love at a low rate, was not seriously alarmed at the growing attachment between his son and Agnes, nor would have been had it advanced much farther.  He thought he had only to say “No,” to put a stop to it at any point.  Still he had determined to place the boy out of the reach of such temptation as a pretty girl living beneath the same roof must always offer to susceptible youth; and hence it was that Mrs. Coe had engaged new lodgings.  But even now, so lightly did his father think of the matter, that Charley was still to be permitted to visit at Mr. Aird’s daily, and take his drawing-lessons as heretofore.