too old for any prospect of a military career he had no turn for diplomacy, no taste for any of the walks open to blood and birth, and was in headlong disgrace with the fountain of goodness at Beckley Court, where he was still kept in the tacit understanding that, should Juliana inherit the place, he must be at hand to marry her instantly, after the fashion of the Jocelyns.  They were an injured family; for what they gave was good, and the commercial world had not behaved honourably to them.  Now, Ferdinand Laxley was just the match for Rose.  Born to a title and fine estate, he was evidently fond of her, and there had been a gentle hope in the bosom of Sir Franks that the family fatality would cease, and that Rose would marry both money and blood.

From this happy delusion poor Sir Franks was awakened to hear that his daughter had plighted herself to the son of a tradesman:  that, as the climax to their evil fate, she who had some blood and some money of her own—­the only Jocelyn who had ever united the two—­was desirous of wasting herself on one who had neither.  The idea was so utterly opposed to the principles Sir Franks had been trained in, that his intellect could not grasp it.  He listened to his sister, Mrs. Shorne:  he listened to his wife; he agreed with all they said, though what they said was widely diverse:  he consented to see and speak to Evan, and he did so, and was much the most distressed.  For Sir Franks liked many things in life, and hated one thing alone—­which was ‘bother.’  A smooth world was his delight.  Rose knew this, and her instruction to Evan was:  ’You cannot give me up—­you will go, but you cannot give me up while I am faithful to you:  tell him that.’  She knew that to impress this fact at once on the mind of Sir Franks would be a great gain; for in his detestation of bother he would soon grow reconciled to things monstrous:  and hearing the same on both sides, the matter would assume an inevitable shape to him.  Mr. Second Fiddle had no difficulty in declaring the eternity of his sentiments; but he toned them with a despair Rose did not contemplate, and added also his readiness to repair, in any way possible, the evil done.  He spoke of his birth and position.  Sir Franks, with a gentlemanly delicacy natural to all lovers of a smooth world, begged him to see the main and the insurmountable objection.  Birth was to be desired, of course, and position, and so forth:  but without money how can two young people marry?  Evan’s heart melted at this generous way of putting it.  He said he saw it, he had no hope:  he would go and be forgotten:  and begged that for any annoyance his visit might have caused Sir Franks and Lady Jocelyn, they would pardon him.  Sir Franks shook him by the hand, and the interview ended in a dialogue on the condition of the knees of Black Lymport, and on horseflesh in Portugal and Spain.