of south Europe, as she would call the Roman communion, there was no need why she should not welcome her as a daughter-in-law:  and accordingly she wrote to her new daughter a very pretty, touching letter (as Esmond thought, who had cognizance of it before it went), in which the only hint of reproof was a gentle remonstrance that her son had not written to herself, to ask a fond mother’s blessing for that step which he was about taking.  “Castlewood knew very well,” so she wrote to her son, “that she never denied him anything in her power to give, much less would she think of opposing a marriage that was to make his happiness, as she trusted, and keep him out of wild courses, which had alarmed her a good deal:”  and she besought him to come quickly to England, to settle down in his family house of Castlewood ("It is his family house,” says she, to Colonel Esmond, “though only his own house by your forbearance”) and to receive the accompt of her stewardship during his ten years’ minority.  By care and frugality, she had got the estate into a better condition than ever it had been since the Parliamentary wars; and my lord was now master of a pretty, small income, not encumbered of debts, as it had been, during his father’s ruinous time.  “But in saving my son’s fortune,” says she, “I fear I have lost a great part of my hold on him.”  And, indeed, this was the case:  her ladyship’s daughter complaining that their mother did all for Frank, and nothing for her; and Frank himself being dissatisfied at the narrow, simple way of his mother’s living at Walcote, where he had been brought up more like a poor parson’s son than a young nobleman that was to make a figure in the world.  ’Twas this mistake in his early training, very likely, that set him so eager upon pleasure when he had it in his power; nor is he the first lad that has been spoiled by the over-careful fondness of women.  No training is so useful for children, great or small, as the company of their betters in rank or natural parts; in whose society they lose the overweening sense of their own importance, which stay-at-home people very commonly learn.

But, as a prodigal that’s sending in a schedule of his debts to his friends, never puts all down, and, you may be sure, the rogue keeps back some immense swingeing bill, that he doesn’t dare to own; so the poor Frank had a very heavy piece of news to break to his mother, and which he hadn’t the courage to introduce into his first confession.  Some misgivings Esmond might have, upon receiving Frank’s letter, and knowing into what hands the boy had fallen; but whatever these misgivings were, he kept them to himself, not caring to trouble his mistress with any fears that might be groundless.