The young Shands had generally lived a pleasant life; had gone to school,--the eldest son, as we have seen, to the university also,--and had had governesses, and ponies to ride, and had been great at dancing, and had shot arrows, and played Badminton, and been subject to but little domestic discipline.

They had lived crowded together in a great red-brick house, plenteously, roughly, quarrelling continually, but very fond of each other in their own way, and were known throughout that side of the country as a happy family.
The girls had always gloves and shoes for dancing, and the boys had enjoyed a considerable amount of shooting and hunting without owning either guns or horses of their own.

Now Dick was to go in quest of a fortune, and all the girls were stitching shirts for him, and were as happy as possible.

Not a word was said about his debts, and no one threw it in his teeth that he had failed to take a degree.

It was known of the Shands that they always made the best of everything.
When Caldigate got out of the railway carriage at Pollington, he was still melancholy with the remembrance of all that he had done and all that he had lost, and he expected to find something of the same feeling at his friend's house.