Frank had promised to tell his mother, for Ethelyn would have no concealment; and so, holding up her hand and pointing to the ring, he said, more in jest than earnest: 

“Look, mother, Ethie and I are engaged.  If you have any objections, state them now, or ever after hold your peace.”

He did not think proper to explain either to his mother or Ethie that this was his second serious entanglement, and that the ring had been bought before for a pretty milliner girl, at least six years his senior, whose acquaintance he had made at Nahant the summer previous, and whom he had forgotten when he learned that to her taste his mother was indebted for the stylish bonnet she sported every season.  Frank generally had some love affair in hand—­it was a part of his nature; and as he was not always careful in his choice, the mother had occasionally felt a twinge of fear lest, after all her care, some terrible mesalliance should be thrust upon her by her susceptible son.  So she listened graciously to the news of his betrothal—­nay, she was pleased with it, as for the time being it would divert his mind and keep him out of mischief.  That he would eventually marry Ethelyn was impossible, for his bride must be rich; but Ethelyn answered the purpose now, and could easily be disposed of when other and better game appeared.  So the scheming woman smiled, and said “it was not well for cousins to marry and even if it were, they were both too young to know their minds, and would do well to keep their engagement a secret for a time,” and then returned to Becky Sharp, while Frank went to sleep upon the lounge, and Ethelyn stole off upstairs to dream over her happiness, which was as real to her as such a thing could well be to an impulsive, womanly girl of fifteen summers.  She, at least, was in earnest, and as time passed on Frank seemed to be in earnest, too, devoting himself wholly to his cousin, whose influence over him was so great that he was fast becoming what Aunt Barbara called a man, while his mother began again to have visions of a seat in Congress, and brilliant speeches, which would find their way to Boston and be read and admired in the circles in which she moved.

And so the days and years wore on until Frank was a man of twenty-four—­a third-rate practitioner, too, whose sign, “Frank Van Buren, Attorney-at-law,” etc., looked very fresh and respectable in front of the office on Washington Street, and Frank himself began to have thoughts of claiming Ethelyn’s promise and having a home of his own.  He would not live with his mother, he said; it was more independent to be alone; and then, from some things he had discovered in his bride-elect, he had an uneasy feeling that possibly the brown of Ethelyn’s eyes might not wholly harmonize with the gray of his mother’s, “for Ethie was spunky as the old Nick,” he argued with himself, while “for perversity and self-conceit his mother could not be beaten.”  It was better they should keep up two households,