Maggie was very sorry indeed.  Her mother had never told her anything of all this, so it was evidently a painful subject to her; and Maggie determined (after lying awake half the night) that she would write to Edward, and remonstrate with him; and that in every personal and household expense, she would be, more than ever, rigidly economical.

The full, free, natural intercourse between her lover and herself, could not fail to be checked by Mr. Buxton’s aversion to the engagement.  Frank came over for some time in the early autumn.  He had left Cambridge, and intended to enter himself at the Temple as soon as the vacation was ended.  He had not been very long at home before Maggie was made aware, partly through Erminia, who had no notion of discreet silence on any point, and partly by her own observation, of the increasing estrangement between father and son.  Mr. Buxton was reserved with Frank for the first time in his life; and Frank was depressed and annoyed at his father’s obstinate repetition of the same sentence, in answer to all his arguments in favor of his engagement—­arguments which were overwhelming to himself and which it required an effort of patience on his part to go over and recapitulate, so obvious was the conclusion; and then to have the same answer forever, the same words even: 

“Frank! it’s no use talking.  I don’t approve of the engagement; and never shall.”

He would snatch up his hat, and hurry off to Maggie to be soothed.  His father knew where he was gone without being told; and was jealous of her influence over the son who had long been his first and paramount object in life.

He needed not have been jealous.  However angry and indignant Frank was when he went up to the moorland cottage, Maggie almost persuaded him, before half an hour had elapsed, that his father was but unreasonable from his extreme affection.  Still she saw that such frequent differences would weaken the bond between father and son; and, accordingly, she urged Frank to accept an invitation into Scotland.

“You told me,” said she, “that Mr. Buxton will have it, it is but a boy’s attachment; and that when you have seen other people, you will change your mind; now do try how far you can stand the effects of absence.”  She said it playfully, but he was in a humor to be vexed.

“What nonsense, Maggie!  You don’t care for all this delay yourself; and you take up my father’s bad reasons as if you believed them.”

“I don’t believe them; but still they may be true.”

“How should you like it, Maggie, if I urged you to go about and see something of society, and try if you could not find some one you liked better?  It is more probable in your case than in mine; for you have never been from home, and I have been half over Europe.”

“You are very much afraid, are not you, Frank?” said she, her face bright with blushes, and her gray eyes smiling up at him.  “I have a great idea that if I could see that Harry Bish that Edward is always talking about, I should be charmed.  He must wear such beautiful waistcoats!  Don’t you think I had better see him before our engagement is quite, quite final?”