“Now, my dear Sidney, if there is any difficulty about expense, for I gather he must study exclusively for some time, pray do not give a thought to it. I will most gladly defray all expenses connected with him. Pray let me hear from you as soon as possible on the subject; and if you can run up to town for a day or two, you will see for yourself, and be a most welcome guest at the house of “Your affectionate brother, “FLINTSHIRE.” But, in spite of these appeals and assaults, Mr. Challoner shewed as yet no definite signs of yielding. To Lady Sunningdale his punctilious answers seemed mere frigid stupidity, and she had not the smallest or vaguest comprehension of the struggle that was going on in his mind. She could not understand that there was any choice to be made, still less that the choice could be a hard one, in determining whether Martin should once and for all close his dictionaries and open his piano, nor, had Mr. Challoner troubled to explain to her the deep mortification that Martin’s ill-success in classical fields had given him, would she have been able to understand it. Karl Rusoff beckoned to him, and it passed her comprehension that his father should not, so to speak, throw him into the musician’s arms. She could not, in fact, with all her acuteness, imagine in faintest outline any picture of the deep and real perplexity which Mr. Challoner was going through, a perplexity which for hours together tightened his mouth and ruled deep creases between the thick, black lines of his eyebrows. The serious talks, too, which he had with his sister evening after evening, between dinner and prayers, and the temporary abolition of Patience, would have seemed to her, if she had heard them, meaningless; they might as well have been conducted in a foreign tongue of which she knew neither alphabet, grammar, or vocabulary. One such occurred on the evening when his brother’s letter arrived. “I have heard from Rupert,” he said, “who wants me to run up to town. That, I am afraid, is impossible. I have too much to do, with Mr. Wilkins away for his holiday and the confirmation classes coming on. All the same, I should be glad if I could. His letter has troubled me rather.” “What does he say?” asked his sister, folding her very dry, thin hands in front of her.