"And what is your cause of anxiety about her at present, Miss Torrington? For Heaven's sake explain yourself fully; you know not how I have been tormenting myself by fearing I know not what." "I am bound to explain myself fully," said Rosalind gravely; "but it is not easy, I assure you." "Only tell me at once what it is you fear. Do you imagine Mr. Cartwright hopes to persuade Fanny to marry him?" "I certainly did think so," said Rosalind; "but I believe now that I was mistaken." "Thank Heaven!" cried the young man fervently. "This is a great relief, Rosalind, I assure you. I believe now I can pretty well guess what it is you do fear; and though it is provoking enough, it cannot greatly signify. We shall soon cure her of any fit of evangelicalism with which the vicar is likely to infect her." "Heaven grant it!" exclaimed Rosalind, uttering a fervent ejaculation in her turn. "Never doubt it, Miss Torrington. I have heard a great deal about this Cartwright at Oxford. He is a Cambridge man, by the way, and there are lots of men there who think him quite an apostle. But the thing does not take at Oxford, and I assure you he is famously quizzed. But the best of the joke is, that his son was within an ace of being expelled for performing more outrageous feats in the larking line than any man in the university; and in fact he must have been rusticated, had not his pious father taken him home before the business got wind, _to prepare him privately for his degree_. They say he is the greatest Pickle in Oxford; and that, spite of the new light, his father is such an ass as to believe that all this is ordained only to make his election more glorious." "For his election, Mr. Mowbray, I certainly do not care much; but for your sister--though I am aware that at her age there may be very reasonable hope that the pernicious opinions she is now imbibing may be hereafter removed, yet I am very strongly persuaded that if you were quite aware of the sort of influence used to convert her to Mr. Cartwright's Calvinistic tenets, you would not only disapprove it, but use very effectual measures to put her quite out of his way." "Indeed!--I confess this appears to me very unnecessary. Surely the best mode of working upon so pure a mind as Fanny's is to reason with her, and to show her that by listening to those pernicious rhapsodies she is in fact withdrawing herself from the church of her fathers; but I think this may be done without sending her out of Mr. Cartwright's way." "Well," replied Rosalind very meekly, "now you are here, I am quite sure that you will do every thing that is right and proper. Mrs. Mowbray cannot be much longer absent; and when she returns, you will perhaps have some conversation with her upon the subject." "Certainly.--And so Sir Gilbert has absolutely refused to act as executor?"