Yet he was deeply attached to his mother, and it was from her letters week by week that he took his marching orders.

If she only wouldn't ride her ideas quite so hard; if she would sometimes leave him alone to act for himself! Here it was again--the old story: "Don't suppose I put these things before you on _my_ account.

No, indeed; what does it matter what happens to me?
It is when I think that you may have to spend your whole life as a clerk in a bank, unless you rouse yourself now--( for you know, my dear Roger, though you have very good wits, you're not as frightfully clever as people have to be nowadays)--that I begin to despair.

But that is _entirely_ in your own hands.

You have what is far more valuable than cleverness--you have a delightful disposition, and you are one of the handsomest of men.