"What business," he would say, "has a man to educate his son to be a clergyman if he has not independent means, or a living ready for him? or even to be a schoolmaster, with fine notions about education, and not a penny in his pocket? Better by far make him a carpenter or a shoemaker, to work for his living without having to endure the torture of keeping up a genteel appearance upon poverty." Mr. Armstrong had been unfortunate in his experience respecting schoolmasters and curates; and with the unbending obstinacy of his nature adhered to the opinion he had formed. The bare idea that Dr. Halford could be a schoolmaster, or that his son was studying at Oxford to become a curate, never occurred to him. His wife, who knew his prejudiced opinions too well, would not enlighten him on the subject, while speaking next morning of the great pleasure he had found in their society, although she wondered that the name had not reminded him of Freddy's school. Mrs. Armstrong congratulated herself, as she remembered that Mary's father had been too much occupied at the dinner-table to notice the gentleman who sat by her side. "If any unpleasantness should arise from the attentions of that young man to my daughter," she said to herself, "I shall have to remove my little Freddy from school, and he is so happy there." One afternoon, after the Easter holidays, Freddy brought home a little note, fortunately addressed to herself, containing the quarter's account. The sum was comparatively trifling, and she sent it herself the next day by Freddy. It had been made out to Mr. Armstrong; but she feared to show him the bill on which the name of Halford stood so conspicuously written. Mrs. Armstrong was giving herself unnecessary anxiety. Henry Halford was already at Oxford absorbed in his books, and more than ever determined to ignore even the existence of a certain young lady with large grey eyes and bright brown hair, who had for a time dazzled his senses.