There was a calm upon his young spirit, so soothing and so blessed, that the future rose before him unsullied by a cloud; anticipation was so bright, it seemed a foretaste of that glorious heaven, the goal to which he and his Mary looked--the home they sought together.
Percy had also obtained honourable distinction at Oxford; his active spirit would not have permitted him to remain quiet in college so long, had he not determined to see his brother ordained ere he commenced the grand tour, to which he looked with much zest, as the completion to his education, and render him, if he turned it to advantage, in all respects fitted to serve his country nobly in her senate, the point to which he had looked, from the first hour he was capable of thought, with an ardour which increased as that long-desired time approached.
The disgraceful expulsion of Cecil Grahame from Cambridge opened afresh that wound in his father's heart which Annie had first inflicted, but which the conduct of Lilla had succeeded in soothing sufficiently to bid her hope it would in time be healed.

The ill-directed young man had squandered away the whole of his mother's fortune, and behaved in a manner that rendered expulsion inevitable.

He chose to join the army, and, with a painfully foreboding heart, his father procured him a commission in a regiment bound for Ireland, hoping he would be exposed to fewer temptations there than did he remain in England.
Lady Helen, as her health continued to decline, felt conscience becoming more and more upbraiding, its voice would not be stilled.

She had known her duty as a mother; she had seen it beautifully portrayed before her in Mrs.Hamilton, but she had neglected its performance, and her chastisement she felt had come.

Annie's conduct she had borne, she had forgiven her, scarcely appearing conscious of the danger her daughter had escaped; but Cecil was her darling, and his disgrace came upon her as a thunderbolt, drawing the veil from her eyes, with startling and bewildering light.