Mrs. Yorke was too wise a woman not to be acquainted with her son's character. Her love for him was very great; as great and disinterested as that with which the most religious and well-principled of women regard their offspring; but it did not blind her to his faults. Her experience of life had not led her to expect perfection; her standard of morals was of very moderate height, and Dick came fully up to it; yet she felt that her son was headstrong, impulsive, and occasionally ungovernable. He had taken his own line in respect to his dealings with Chandos and with others, in spite of her urgent entreaties. Her opposition, though fruitless, had indeed been so strenuous that the subject was a sore one between them; and had the opportunity been less palpable, she would scarcely have ventured to revert to it that night. She had done so, however, and carried her point. He had passed his word to her that he would undertake no more such hazards, and Dick's word was as steadfast as Carew's. He was aimless and indolent; but as a mean man, who brings himself to perform some act of munificence, will effect it unsparingly, or a selfish man, "when he is about it," will be all self-abnegation; so, when he _had_ made up his mind, his determination was rock. Mrs. Yorke then felt sure of her son so far, and rejoiced at it. But she was disturbed about him on other accounts. Perhaps, notwithstanding her assertion to the contrary, she may have had some scanty hopes of her son's success at Crompton; or perhaps his want of it placed before her for the first time the gigantic obstacles that lay in his social path. Were the times really gone by which she had known, wherein personal beauty, and youth, and grace of manner could win their way to any height? Or did she misjudge her own sex, while so sagacious an observer of the other? Her Dick was still very young; but his appearance should surely have done something for him even now; yet hitherto it had won him nothing but friendships of doubtful value, one of which, indeed, had just done him infinite hurt. Were girls with fortunes, then, as prudent and calculating as those who were penniless, as she had been? It did not strike her that they were infinitely more unapproachable; or rather, such was her estimation of her son's attractions, that she thought he had only to be seen in his opera-stall to become the magnet of every female heart. Had she been mistaken altogether in her plan for his future?