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“ I will not give you any encouragement , ” said Mary , reddening . “ Your friends would dislike it , and so would mine . My father would think it a disgrace to me if I accepted a man who got into debt , and would not work ! ” Fred was stung , and released her hand . She walked to the door , but there she turned and said : “ Fred , you have always been so good , so generous to me . I am not ungrateful . But never speak to me in that way again . ” “ Very well , ” said Fred , sulkily , taking up his hat and whip . His complexion showed patches of pale pink and dead white . Like many a plucked idle young gentleman , he was thoroughly in love , and with a plain girl , who had no money ! But having Mr . Featherstone’s land in the background , and a persuasion that , let Mary say what she would , she really did care for him , Fred was not utterly in despair . When he got home , he gave four of the twenties to his mother , asking her to keep them for him . “ I don’t want to spend that money , mother . I want it to pay a debt with . So keep it safe away from my fingers . ” “ Bless you , my dear , ” said Mrs . Vincy . She doted on her eldest son and her youngest girl ( a child of six ) , whom others thought her two naughtiest children . The mother’s eyes are not always deceived in their partiality : she at least can best judge who is the tender , filial - hearted child . And Fred was certainly very fond of his mother . Perhaps it was his fondness for another person also that made him particularly anxious to take some security against his own liability to spend the hundred pounds . For the creditor to whom he owed a hundred and sixty held a firmer security in the shape of a bill signed by Mary’s father . CHAPTER XV . “ Black eyes you have left , you say , Blue eyes fail to draw you ; Yet you seem more rapt to - day , Than of old we saw you . “ Oh , I track the fairest fair Through new haunts of pleasure ; Footprints here and echoes there Guide me to my treasure : “ Lo ! she turns — immortal youth Wrought to mortal stature , Fresh as starlight’s aged truth — Many - namèd Nature ! ” A great historian , as he insisted on calling himself , who had the happiness to be dead a hundred and twenty years ago , and so to take his place among the colossi whose huge legs our living pettiness is observed to walk under , glories in his copious remarks and digressions as the least imitable part of his work , and especially in those initial chapters to the successive books of his history , where he seems to bring his armchair to the proscenium and chat with us in all the lusty ease of his fine English . But Fielding lived when the days were longer ( for time , like money , is measured by our needs ) , when summer afternoons were spacious , and the clock ticked slowly in the winter evenings .
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