Jane left Mr. Halliburton with a word of apology, and almost immediately after Mr. Tait came in. He was a little taken to when he saw the stranger. His imagination had run, if not upon an "old guy" in spectacles, certainly upon some steady, sober, middle-aged mathematical master. Would it be well to admit this young, good-looking man to his house. If Jane Tait had been candid in her revelations to Mr. Halliburton, that gentleman, in his turn, was not less candid to her father. He, Edgar Halliburton, was the only child of a country clergyman, the Rev. William Halliburton, who had died when Edgar was sixteen, leaving nothing behind him. Edgar--he had previously lost his mother--found a home with his late mother's brother, a gentleman named Cooper, who resided in Birmingham. Mr. Cooper was a man in extensive wholesale business, and wished Edgar to go into his counting-house. Edgar declined. His father had lived long enough to form his tastes: his greatest wish had been to see him enter the Church; and the wish had become Edgar's own. Mr. Cooper thought there was nothing in the world like business: and looked upon that most sacred of all callings, God's ministry, only in the light of a profession. He had carved out his own career, step by step, attaining wealth and importance, and wished his nephew to do the same. "Which is best, lad?" he coarsely asked: "To rule as a merchant prince, or starve and toil as a curate? I'm not quite a merchant prince yet, but you may be." "It was my father's wish," pleaded Edgar in answer, "and it is my own. I cannot give it up, sir." The dispute ran high--not in words, but in obstinacy. Edgar would not yield, and at length Mr. Cooper discarded him. He turned him out of doors: told him that, if he must become a parson, he might get some one else to pay his expenses at Oxford, for he never would. Edgar Halliburton proceeded to London, and obtained employment as an usher in a school, teaching classics and mathematics. From that he became a private teacher, and had so earned his living up to the present time: but he had never succeeded in getting to college. And Mr. Tait, before they had talked together five minutes, was charmed with his visitor, and invited him to take tea with him, which Jane came down to make. "Has your uncle never softened towards you?" Mr. Tait inquired. "Never. I have addressed several letters to him, but they have been returned to me." "He has no family, you say. You ought--in justice, you ought to inherit some of his wealth. Has he other relatives?" "He has one standing to him in the same relationship as I--my Cousin Julia. It is not likely that I shall ever inherit a shilling of it, sir. I do not expect it."