The wayward, handsome lad was, on the other hand, adored by his mother. Her intelligence, not naturally acute, was quickened to see his faults, not indeed as such, but as possible causes of misfortune to him. His too lively impulses, his indecision, his love of pleasure, were all sources of apprehension to her, though scarcely ever of rebuke. She saw in Agnes Aird, his tutor's daughter--so simple, yet so sensible and sterling, so faithful, pure, and true--the very girl to make her son a fitting wife; an antidote for what was amiss in him; her honest heart a sheet-anchor to hold him fast, not in the turbid ocean of excess, for her Charley was too good to tempt it, but through that sparkling sea of gayety 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.