The Babington girls were still Babington girls,--would still romp, row boats, and play cricket; but their condition was becoming a care to their parents.

Here was this cousin come back, unmarried, with gold at command,--not only once again his father's heir, but with means at command which were not at all diminished by the Babington imagination.
After all that had passed in the linen-closet, what escape would there be for him?
That he should come to Babington would be a matter of course.

The real kindness which had been shown to him there as a child would make it impossible that he should refuse.
Caldigate did feel it to be impossible to refuse.

Though Aunt Polly had on that last occasion been somewhat hard upon him, had laid snares for him, and endeavoured to catch him as a fowler catches a bird, still there had been the fact that she had been as a mother to him when he had no other mother.

His uncle, too, had supplied him with hunting and shooting and fishing, when hunting and shooting and fishing were the great joys of his life.