But he was reticent, only dropping a word here and there, out of deference, perhaps, to his wife, and from a feeling lest his son might be deficient in wise courtesy, if he were encouraged to laugh at his benefactor.  He had said a word or two as to a profession when Harry left Cambridge, but the word or two had come to nothing.  In those days the uncle had altogether ridiculed the idea, and the mother, fond of her son, the fellow and the heir, had altogether opposed the notion.  The rector himself was an idle, good-looking, self-indulgent man,—­a man who read a little and understood what he read, and thought a little and understood what he thought, but who took no trouble about anything.  To go through the world comfortably with a rather large family and a rather small income was the extent of his ambition.  In regard to his eldest son he had begun well.  Harry had been educated free, and had got a fellowship.  He had never cost his father a shilling.  And now the eldest of two grown-up daughters was engaged to be married to the son of a brewer living in the little town of Buntingford.  This also was a piece of good-luck which the rector accepted with a thankful heart.  There was another grown-up girl, also pretty, and then a third girl not grown up and the two boys who were at present at school at Royston.  Thus burdened, the Rev. Mr. Annesley went through the world with as jaunty a step as was possible, making but little of his troubles, but anxious to make as much as he could of his advantages.  Of these, the position of Harry was the brightest, if only Harry would be careful to guard it.  It was quite out of the question that he should find an income for Harry if the squire stopped the two hundred and fifty pounds per annum which he at present allowed him.

Then there was Harry’s mother, who had already very frequently discounted the good things which were to fall to Harry’s lot.  She was a dear, good, motherly woman, all whose geese were certainly counted to be swans.  And of all swans Harry was the whitest; whereas, in purity of plumage, Mary, the eldest daughter, who had won the affections of the young Buntingford brewer, was the next.  That Harry’s allowance should be stopped would be almost as great a misfortune as though Mr. Thoroughbung were to break his neck out hunting with the Puckeridge hounds,—­an amusement which, after the manner of brewers, he was much in the habit of following.  Mrs. Annesley had lived at Buston all her life, having been born at the Hall.  She was an excellent mother of a family, and a good clergyman’s wife, being in both respects more painstaking and assiduous than her husband.  But she did maintain something of respect for her brother, though in her inmost heart she knew that he was a fool.  But to have been born Squire of Buston was something, and to have reached the age of fifty unmarried, so as to leave the position of heir open to her own son, was more.  To such a one a great deal was due; but of that deal Harry