"Oh, sir, he is dead, and we can't help it," interrupted Buckhurst. "And as
for me, I never had, and never shall have, any application: so pray put the
bar out of your mind."

"Very cavalier, indeed!--but I will make you serious at once, Buckhurst.
You have nothing to expect from my death--I have not a farthing to leave
you--my place, you know, is only for life--your mother's fortune is all in
annuity, and two girls to be provided for--and to live as we must live--up
to and beyond my income--shall have nothing to leave. Though you are my
eldest son, you see it is in vain to look to my death--so into the church
you must go, or be a beggar--and get a living or starve. Now I have done,"
concluded the commissioner, quitting his son; "and I leave you to think of
what has been said."

Buckhurst thought and thought; but still his interest and his conscience
were at variance, and he could not bring himself either to be virtuous or
vicious enough to comply with his father's wishes. He could not decide to
go into the church merely from interested motives--from that his conscience
revolted; he could not determine to make himself fit to do credit to
the sacred profession--against this his habits and his love of pleasure
revolted. He went to his brother John, to try what could be done with him.
Latin and Greek were insuperable objections with John; besides, though
he had a dull imagination in general, John's fancy had been smitten with
one bright idea of an epaulette, from which no considerations, fraternal,
political, moral, or religious, could distract his attention.--His genius,
he said, was for the army, and into the army he would go.--So to his
genius, Buckhurst, in despair, was obliged to leave him.--The commissioner
neglected not to push the claim which he had on Colonel Hauton, and he
chose his time so well, when proper people were by, and when the colonel
did not wish to have the squire, and the horse-whip, and the duel, brought