"For the last you must come to me," said Dick; "on that point you'll find me superior to all the sages put together. And as for drawing leases--but I suppose you have some beggar of a man of business who will take the bread out of a poor beginner's mouth." "Though Mr. Cavendish talks in that way," said Mrs. Wilberforce aside to Minnie, "as though he wanted employment so much, he has a very nice little fortune of his own. It is just his way of talking. And as for connection, there is no one better. His father is a cousin--it may be a good many times removed, but still it is quite traceable--of the Duke. I am not sure, even, that they are not in the peerage as collaterals; indeed, I am almost sure they are, and that we should find him and everything about him, if we looked." "Of course everybody knows he is very well connected," said Minnie, "but young men all talk nonsense. Listen to Theo! Why shouldn't he go back to Oxford and take his degree, like other people? I don't care about the class. A gentleman need not be particularly clever; but if he has been at the University and does not take his degree, it is always supposed that there is some reason. I don't think it is respectable, for my part." "Ah, my dear, the young men of the present day, they are a law to themselves," said her friend. "They don't care for what is respectable. Indeed, so far as I can see, they make it a sort of reproach; they let nobodies pick up the prizes. And what do they expect it is all to end in? I could tell them very well, if they would listen to me. The French Revolution is what it will end in; but of course they will not listen to anything one can say." "Oh, you know we are Liberals," cried Minnie; "we don't go in with that." "If you are going to town to-morrow, Cavendish, I don't mind if I go with you," said Warrender. "I have some business to look after. At least, it is not exactly business," for he saw his mother's eyes turned on him inquiringly; "it is a commission from a friend. I shall only stay a night, mother; you need not look so surprised." "It will do you good," she said quietly. "And why should you hurry back? You will be the better for the change." He gave her a suspicious, half-angry look, as if he saw more in her words than met the eye. "I shall only be gone a single night," he said. "I will do all I can to upset his good resolutions, Mrs. Warrender. He shall go to all sorts of notorious places, to keep me in countenance. If he can be beguiled into any little improprieties, I am your man." "Don't be afraid," said the rector. "Dick's wickednesses are all theoretical. I'd trust Georgie in the worst haunt he knows."