Cambridge he never went to see his son; nor would he even press the lad to come out to Folking.  Nor when, on rare occasions, a visit was made, did he endeavour to make the house pleasant.  He was jealous, jealous to hot anger, at being neglected, but could not bring himself to make advances to his own son.  Then when he heard from his son’s tutor that his son could not pass his degree without the payment of L800 for recognised debts,—­then his anger boiled over, and he told John Caldigate that he was expelled from his father’s heart and his father’s house.

The money was paid and the degree was taken:  and there arose the question as to what was to be done.  John, of course, took himself to Babington House, and was condoled with by his uncle and cousins.  His troubles at this time were numerous enough.  That L800 by no means summed up his whole indebtedness;—­covered indeed but a small part of it.  He had been at Newmarket; and there was a pleasant gentleman, named Davis, who frequented that place and Cambridge, who had been very civil to him when he lost a little money, and who now held his acceptances for, alas! much more than L800.  Even uncle Babington knew nothing of this when the degree was taken.  And then there came a terrible blow to him.  Aunt Babington,—­aunt Polly as she was called,—­got him into her own closet upstairs, where she kept her linen and her jams and favourite liqueurs, and told him that his cousin Julia was dying in love for him.  After all that had passed, of course it was expected he would engage himself to his cousin Julia.  Now Julia was the eldest, the thickest-ankled, and the cherry-cheekedest of the lot.  To him up to that time the Babington folk had always been a unit.  No one else had been so good-natured to him, had so petted him, and so freely administered to all his wants.  He would kiss them all round whenever he went to Babington; but he had not kissed Julia more than her sisters.  There were three sons, whom he never specially liked, and who certainly were fools.  One was the heir, and, of course, did nothing; the second was struggling for a degree at Oxford with an eye to the family living; the third was in a fair way to become the family gamekeeper.  He certainly did not wish to marry into the family;—­and yet they had all been so kind to him!

‘I should have nothing to marry on, aunt Polly,’ he said.

Then he was reminded that he was his father’s heir, and that his father’s house was sadly in want of a mistress.  They could live at Babington till Folking should be ready.  The prospect was awful!

What is a young man to say in such a position?  ’I do not love the young lady after that fashion, and therefore I must decline.’  It requires a hero, and a cold-blooded hero, to do that.  And aunt Polly was very much in earnest, for she brought Julia into the room, and absolutely delivered her up into the young man’s arms.

‘I am so much in debt,’ he said, ‘that I don’t care to think of it.’