The banker consented readily to William’s project; it was likely, _he_ thought, to accomplish a twofold good:--to establish the young man’s fortunes steadily, on a basis of good work entered into with the freshness of youth, and to detach him from his foolish liking to the poor schoolmistress, who, gentlewoman as Hope asserted her to be, he was resolved to receive into his family--never! So, although on grounds so different, the father and mother consented, and the grave, firm, undemonstrative son, the depths of whose nature were too profound to be frozen over as his mother feared by the icy prudence of the world, mapped out his own course, knowing better than they did the tenacious constancy of his own mind. It was no boyish fancy which moved him; the light emotions of youthful liking were very different from this, and there was nothing from which the ardent, grave spirit stood in so little peril as change. On a dull evening, late in December, he sat by Mrs Buchanan’s fireside waiting till Mrs Buchanan’s daughter should leave her school-room and her pupils. William Oswald had been a favourite long ago with his father’s sensitive partner, and was a favourite with Mrs Buchanan of so long standing, that before the unfortunate hour in which he astonished with unwonted eloquence the wondering ears of Helen, and raised the _questio vexata_, which at present did so strangely unite and disunite them, his prospects and purposes had been as confidentially discussed in Mrs Buchanan’s parlour as at home; and still, though Helen’s mother began to feel strongly interested in the prosperity of the Reverend Robert Insches, it was impossible to break through the old familiar use and wont which bound her to William Oswald almost like a mother to a son. In his absence she could fancy the Reverend Robert very eligible, but in his presence she felt almost unwillingly that it could be none but he, the daily long-accustomed visitor--the son trained into all their simple habitudes--the friend whom they knew so thoroughly, and who so thoroughly knew them. To this friendly, confidential footing he was very anxious to return to-night. He wanted to discuss his plans with them, to make Helen aware of the course which he projected for himself. Since he made the plunge, and relinquished his place as friend to claim a nearer one, the attempt had cost him much; not only the constraint which it had placed upon his intercourse with his father, but the loss of Helen’s society which it involved; so he resolved for this night to ignore their past struggle, and to be only the old familiar friend, the son of the house.