'
There was no resisting after this appeal, and after the first shock,
my mother was ready to admit that as Clarence owed everything to Mr.
Castleford, he could not well desert the firm, if it were really
needful for its welfare that he should go out. We got her to look
on Mr. Castleford as captain of the ship, and Clarence as first
lieutenant; and when she was once convinced that he did not want to
aggrandise the family, but to do his duty, she dropped her
objections; and we soon saw that the occupations that his absence
would impose on her would be a fresh interest in life.
Just as the decision was thus ratified, a packet from Canton arrived
for Clarence from Bristol. It was the first reply of young Frith to
the tidings of the bequest which had changed the poor clerk to a
wealthy man, owning a large proportion of the shares of the
prosperous house.
I asked if he were coming home, and Clarence briefly replied that he
did not know,--'it depended--'
'Is he going to wed a fair Chinese with lily feet?' asked Martyn, to
which the reply was an unusually discourteous 'Bosh,' as Clarence
escaped with his letter. He was so reticent about it that I
required a solemn assurance that poor Lawrence's head had not been
turned by his fortune, and that there was nothing wrong with him.
Indeed, there was great stupidity in never guessing the purport of
that thick letter, nor that it contained one for Emily, where
Lawrence Frith laid himself, and all that he had, at her feet,
ascribing to her all the resolution with which he had kept from
evil, and entreating permission to come home and endeavour to win
her heart.
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