‘The quieter we can do it the better,’ she wrote to her countess-sister.  ’Her father wanted to give him at least a thousand pounds; but Mr Gazebee has told me confidentially that it literally cannot be done at the present moment!  Ah, my dear Rosina! how things have been managed!  If one or two of the girls will come over, we shall all take it as a favour.  Beatrice would think it very kind of them.  But I don’t think of asking you or Amelia.’  Amelia was always the grandest of the De Courcy family, being almost on an equality with—­nay, in some respect superior to—­the countess herself.  But this, of course, was before the days of the place in Surrey.

Such, and so humble being the present temper of the lady of Greshamsbury, it will not be thought surprising that she and Mr Gresham should at last come together in their efforts to reclaim their son.

At first Lady Arabella urged upon the squire the duty of being very peremptory and very angry.  ’Do as other fathers do in such cases.  Make him understand that he will have no allowance to live on.’  ’He understands that well enough,’ said Mr Gresham.

‘Threaten to cut him off with a shilling,’ said her ladyship, with spirit.  ‘I haven’t a shilling to cut him off with,’ answered the squire, bitterly.

But Lady Arabella herself soon perceived, that this line would not do.  As Mr Gresham himself confessed, his own sins against his son had been too great to allow of his taking a high hand with him.  Besides, Mr Gresham was not a man who could ever be severe with a son whose individual conduct had been so good as Frank’s.  This marriage, was, in his view, a misfortune to be averted if possible,—­to be averted by any possible means; but, as far as Frank was concerned, it was to be regarded rather as a monomania than a crime.

’I did feel so certain that he would have succeeded with Miss Dunstable,’ said the mother, almost crying.

’I thought it impossible but that at his age a twelvemonth knocking about the world would cure him,’ said the father.

‘I never heard of a boy being so obstinate about a girl,’ said the mother.  ‘I’m sure he didn’t get it from the De Courcys:’  and then, again, they talked it over in all its bearings.

‘But what are they to live upon?’ said Lady Arabella, appealing, as it were, to some impersonation of reason.  ’That’s what I want him to tell me.  What are they to live upon?’

‘I wonder whether De Courcy could get him into some embassy?’ said the father.  ‘He does talk of a profession.’

‘What! with the girl and all?’ asked Lady Arabella with horror, alarmed at the idea of such an appeal being made to her noble brother.

‘No; but before he marries.  He might be broken of it that way.’

‘Nothing will break him,’ said the wretched mother; ’nothing—­nothing.  For my part, I think that he is possessed.  Why was she brought here?  Oh, dear! oh, dear!  Why was she ever brought into this house?’