The news of Owen's engagement to Mr. Bragg was variously received by his various acquaintances in Oldchester. Some laughed good-naturedly, some ill-naturedly; some said it was a good thing the young man had at last seen the necessity for exerting himself; some wondered why on earth he had accepted such a position; and some--a good many those--wondered why Mr. Bragg had accepted _him_. Mrs. Hadlow did not feel unmixed satisfaction by any means. "It's just like Owen," she said to her husband. "There is such a singular perversity about him! He has thrown away one straight stick after the other, and now all of a sudden he clutches at this crooked one, as eagerly as though his life depended on getting hold of it." Canon Hadlow, for his part, was well pleased enough. The sentiment at the bottom of his wife's heart was that to employ a Rivers in any such base mechanic business as writing commercial letters was like harnessing a thoroughbred Arab to the dust-cart. But the canon could not, in the nature of things, fully share that feeling. Nevertheless, he had a strong regard for Owen, and spoke of him in high terms to Mr. Bragg. But the testimony in Owen's favour which chiefly impressed Mr. Bragg was the testimony which Owen gave himself--by deeds, not words. Being moved by a certain energetic simplicity which belonged to him, to perform the duties he had undertaken with the most complete thoroughness he could command, he got a clerk who conducted the foreign correspondence of a great Oldchester manufacturer to give him lessons after business hours. He worked away evening after evening at the composition of mercantile letters in Spanish until he succeeded in producing epistles so surprisingly technical that his instructor declared he went far beyond what was necessary in that line, and would do well to mitigate his business style with a little good Spanish! He studied, also, to improve his handwriting. It was a legible hand already, since he wrote with the single-minded aim of being read. But he strove to make it distinctly commercial in character, and succeeded. All this became known to Mr. Bragg, who said nothing. But, when it got wind among the little circle of persons who frequented Garnet Lodge, it was the subject of some raillery from Owen's friends. So long as the raillery proceeded from such persons as Dr. Hatch or Major Mitten, there was no offence in it; but with Theodore Bransby the case was different.