"But what is the matter?" cried Captain Roland, "will nobody say what is the matter? Money, I suppose--money, you confounded extravagant young dog. Luckily you have got an uncle who has more than he knows what to do with. How much?--fifty?--a hundred? two hundred? How can I write the cheque, if you'll not speak?" "Hush, brother! it is no money you can give that will set this right. My poor boy! have I guessed truly? Did I guess truly the other evening, when--" "Yes, sir, yes! I have been so wretched. But I am better now--I can tell you all." My uncle moved slowly towards the door: his fine sense of delicacy made him think that even he was out of place in the confidence between son and father. "No, uncle," I said, holding out my hand to him, "stay; you too can advise me--strengthen me. I have kept my honour yet--help me to keep it still." At the sound of the word honour Captain Roland stood mute, and raised his head quickly. So I told all--incoherently enough at first, but clearly and manfully as I went on. Now I know that it is not the custom of lovers to confide in fathers and uncles. Judging by those mirrors of life, plays and novels, they choose better;--valets and chambermaids, and friends whom they have picked up in the street, as I had picked up poor Francis Vivian--to these they make clean breasts of their troubles. But fathers and uncles--to them they are close, impregnable, "buttoned to the chin." The Caxtons were an eccentric family, and never did anything like other people. When I had ended, I lifted my eyes, and said pleadingly, "Now, tell me, is there no hope--none?" "Why should there be none?" cried Captain Roland hastily--"the De Caxtons are as good a family as the Trevanions; and as for yourself, all I will say is, that the young lady might choose worse for her own happiness." I wrung my uncles hand, and turned to my father in anxious fear--for I knew that, in spite of his secluded habits, few men ever formed a sounder judgment on worldly matters, when he was fairly drawn to look at them. A thing wonderful is that plain wisdom which scholars and poets often have for others, though they rarely deign to use it for themselves. And how on earth do they get at it? I looked at my father, and the vague hope Roland had excited fell as I looked. "Brother," said he slowly, and shaking his head, "the world, which gives codes and laws to those who live in it, does not care much for a pedigree, unless it goes with a title-deed to estates." "Trevanion was not richer than Pisistratus when he married Lady Ellinor," said my uncle.