After taking his degree, Frank was fortunate enough to render himself so agreeable to young Fortinbrass, the son of the great Indian pale-ale brewer, that that young plutocrat insisted on taking him with him as half-secretary, half-bear-leader, in his tour through Europe and the East; and as they stopped at every place where there was any thing to be done, and a good many at which there was nothing to be done, and as they had the usual share of quarantine, and as Fortinbrass took ill at Smyrna and had to lay up for four months, it was, full three years before Frank returned to England. Then he determined to settle down and get to work in earnest; and after a few rebuffs and discouragements, philosophically encountered, he made his mark in the press world, and obtained constant and fairly remunerative employment. Then the house in Great Adullam Street was taken, as handy to the _Statesman_ office, Frank's head-quarters, and furnished partly with the best of the Devonshire furniture, and partly with odds and ends bought cheap at sales, for the joint income was but small, and Eleanor had a wholesome horror of debt. And then the full tide of Eleanor Churchill's happiness flowed in: she had loved her husband; she had worshipped his memory in her holy of holies; she had preserved his image, and had bowed down before it; with his death vanished all his shortcomings, but his better qualities--the early affection, kindness, and chivalry--were remembered. But now that her son was with her, the old image faded and rapidly paled. Here was one uniting the excellences of his father with virtues which his father never possessed, tempering high spirits and ardent affection with earnestness, industry, and honour; no mawkish sentimentalist, no prudish Pharisee; a man of passions and impulse, yet a Christian and a gentleman, and above all--her own boy. That was the touchstone; that was the grand secret. He had his flirtations, of course; his intrigues, perhaps; but he was her son, her companion, and she was his honoured mother, but she was also his trusted friend. All his hopes and fears, all the fun and gossip of the day, were brought by him to her; he talked to her on books and art and social questions; he read to her and with her; he advised her on her own reading, and he brought home with him men of European fame and name, and introduced her to them, and made much of her before them. _If it would only last!_ Beware of that, Eleanor Churchill! Some one must reign after you, and with her uprising must be your downsetting. It was ever so. Ask not why tarry the wheels of his chariot, for the news that he brings with him will wring and torture your fond, trusting heart. The old lady's face, which had grown somewhat worn and rigid in watching, brightened as she heard the sound of wheels in the distance, and as she saw a hansom cab come plunging and rattling over the uneven stones, to be finally pulled up with a jerk before the door.