The mere idea of going to college, and thus taking a step nearer to Barbara, began immediately to better his health. It gave him many a happy thought, many a cottage and castle in the air, with more of a foundation than he knew. But his mother did not revert to it; and one day suddenly the thought came to Richard that perhaps she meant to apply to sir Wilton for the means of sending him. Castle and cottage fell in silent ruin. His soul recoiled from the idea with loathing--as much for his mother's sake as his own. Having married his reputed father, she must have no more relation, for good any more than for bad, with sir Wilton--least of all for his sake! To her he was dead; and ought to be as dead as disregard could make him! So, at least, thought Richard. He was sorry he had confessed he should like to go to Oxford. If his mother again alluded to the thing, he would tell her he had changed his mind, and would not interrupt the exercise of his profession as surgeon to old books. CHAPTER XLVIII. _DEATH THE DELIVERER_. The spring advanced; the days grew a little warmer; and at length, partly from economic considerations, it was determined they should go home. When they reached London, they found a great difference in the weather: it cannot be said she owes her salubrity to her climate. Fog and drizzle, frost and fog, were the embodiment of its unvarying mutability. At once Richard was worse, and dared not think, for his mother's sake, and the labour she had spent upon him, of going to the next popular concert, if indeed those delights had not ceased for the season. But he ought to try, for he could do that in the middle of the day, at least to get news of Arthur Manson. He dreaded hearing that he was no more in this world. The cold wintry weather, and the return to poor and spare nourishment caused by Richard's illness, must have been hard upon him! It was a continual sorrow to Richard that he had not been able to get him his new clothes before he was taken ill. So the first morning he felt it possible, he took his way to the city. There he learned that the company had dispensed with Arthur's services, because his attendance had become so irregular. “You see, sir,” said the porter, “the gov'nors they don't think no more of a man than they do of a horse: so long as he can hold the shafts up an' lean agin the collar, he's money; when he can't no longer, he's dirt!”