“I don’t know whether Mr. Beilby is a very happy man or a very good man,” said Mary.

“I don’t know, either,” said Harry; “but I do know that he has thrown a single arch over a wider span of water than ever was done before, and that ought to make him happy.”  After saying this in a tone of high authority, befitting his dignity as a fellow of his college, Harry Clavering went out, leaving his mother and sisters to discuss the subject, which to two of them was all-important.  As to Mary, she had hopes of her own, vested in the clerical concerns of a neighboring parish.

Chapter III

Lord Ongar

On the next morning Harry Clavering rode over to Stratton, thinking much of his misery as he went.  It was all very well for him, in the presence of his own family to talk of his profession as the one subject which was to him of any importance; but he knew very well himself that he was only beguiling them in doing so.  This question of a profession was, after all, but dead leaves to him—­to him who had a canker at his heart, a perpetual thorn in his bosom, a misery within him which no profession could mitigate!  Those dear ones at home guessed nothing of this, and he would take care that they should guess nothing.  Why should they have the pain of knowing that he had been made wretched forever by blighted hopes?  His mother, indeed, had suspected something in those sweet days of his roaming with Julia through the park.  She had once or twice said a word to warn him.  But of the very truth of his deep love—­so he told himself—­she had been happily ignorant.  Let her be ignorant.  Why should he make his mother unhappy?  As these thoughts passed through his mind, I think that he revelled in his wretchedness, and made much to himself of his misery.  He sucked in his sorrow greedily, and was somewhat proud to have had occasion to break his heart.  But not the less, because he was thus early blighted, would he struggle for success in the world.  He would show her that, as his wife, she might have had a worthier position than Lord Ongar could give her.  He, too, might probably rise the quicker in the world, as now he would have no impediment of wife or family.  Then, as he rode along, he composed a sonnet, fitting to his case, the strength and rhythm of which seemed to him, as he sat on horseback, to be almost perfect.  Unfortunately, when he was back at Clavering, and sat in his room with the pen in his hand, the turn of the words had escaped him.

He found Mr. Burton at home, and was not long in concluding his business.  Messrs. Beilby & Burton were not only civil engineers, but were land surveyors also, and land valuers on a great scale.  They were employed much by Government upon public buildings, and if not architects themselves, were supposed to know all that architects should do and should not do.  In the purchase of great properties Mr. Burton’s opinion was supposed to be, or to have been, as good