Page:Eliot - Middlemarch, vol. II, 1872.djvu/164

154 and clever enough: we must be humble and let smart people push themselves before us."

Fred's spirit could not bear this: rising and looking at Mr Featherstone, he said, "Shall my mother and I leave the room, sir, that you may be alone with your friends?"

"Sit down, I tell you," said old Featherstone, snappishly. "Stop where you are. Good-bye, Solomon," he added, trying to wield his stick again, but failing now that he had reversed the handle. "Good-bye, Mrs Waule. Don't you come again."

"I shall be down-stairs, Brother, whether or no," said Solomon. "I shall do my duty, and it remains to be seen what the Almighty will allow."

"Yes, in property going out of families," said Mrs Waule, in continuation,—"and where there's steady young men to carry on. But I pity them who are not such, and I pity their mothers. Good-bye, Brother Peter."

"Remember, I'm the eldest after you, Brother, and prospered from the first, just as you did, and have got land already by the name of Featherstone," said Solomon, relying much on that reflection, as one which might be suggested in the watches of the night. "But I bid you good-bye for the present."

Their exit was hastened by their seeing old