‘Oh, very well off, no doubt,’ said his sister, with a touch of contempt; ‘a vapid squire, like the rest of them. People used to say the Rentons were like a fresh breeze blowing in the county. Always motion and stir where they were! And, poor Laurie!’ she added once more, with offensive compassion, as they turned and came again face to face with Laurie’s boat. ‘I should like to know why Laurie so particularly excites your pity,’ said Mr. Renton, much irritated. Laurie was his own namesake and favourite, and this was the animadversion which he could least bear. ‘Poor boy! I don’t know who would not pity him,’ said Aunt Lydia; ‘it would melt a heart of stone to see a boy with such abilities all going to wrack and ruin. It is all very well as long as he is at home; but when he comes to have his own money what will he do with it? Spend it on pictures and nonsense, and encourage a set of idle people about him to eat him up. Laurence, you mark my words--that is just the kind of boy to be eaten up by everybody, and to come to poverty in the end. Whereas, if he had been taught from the first that work was the natural destiny of man----’ ‘There, Lydia,--there,--I wish you would make an end of this croaking,’ cried Mr. Renton. ‘I am not quite well to-day, and can’t bear it. That’s enough for one time.’ ‘As for Frank, I give him up,’ said Mrs. Westbury,--‘a soldier, that can never make a penny,--and, of all soldiers, a Guardsman! I am very sorry for you, Laurence, I am sure. How a man of your sense could give in so to Mary’s whims I can’t understand.’