Page:What Will He Do With It? - Routledge - Volume 1.djvu/29

 and, after a pause, said, drily,—"Plain as a pikestaff. Your relation is one of those men who, having no children, suspect and dread the attention of an heir presumptive; and what has made this sting, as you call it, keener to you is—pardon me—is in some silly words of your mother, who, in showing you the letters, has hinted to you that that heir you might be, if you were sufficiently pliant and subservient. Am I not right?"

Lionel hung his head, without reply.

VANCE (cheeringly).—"So, so; no great harm as yet. Enough of the first letter. What was the last?"

LIONEL.—"Still more offensive. He, this kinsman, this patron, desired my mother to spare him those references to her son's ability and promise, which, though natural to herself, had slight interest to him,—him, the condescending benefactor! As to his opinion, what could I care for the opinion of one I had never seen? All that could sensibly affect my—oh, but I cannot go on with those cutting phrases, which imply but this, 'All I can care for is the money of a man who insults me while he gives it.'"

VANCE (emphatically).—"Without being a wizard, I should say your relative was rather a disagreeable person,—not what is called urbane and amiable,—in fact, a brute."

LIONEL.—"You will not blame me, then, when I tell you that I resolved not to accept the offer to maintain me at college, with which the letter closed. Luckily Dr. Wallis (the head master of my school), who had always been very kind to me, had just undertaken to supervise a popular translation of the classics. He recommended me, at my request, to the publisher engaged in the undertaking, as not incapable of translating some of the less difficult Latin authors,—subject to his corrections. When I had finished the first instalment of the work thus intrusted to me, my mother grew alarmed for my health, and insisted on my taking some recreation. You were about to set out on a pedestrian tour. I had, as you say, some pounds in my pocket; and thus I have passed with you the merriest days of my life."

VANCE.—"What said your civil cousin when your refusal to go to college was conveyed to him?"

LIONEL.—"He did not answer my mother's communication to that effect till just before I left home, and then,—no, it was not his last letter from which I repeated that withering extract,—no, the last was more galling still, for in it he said that if, in spite of the ability and promise that had been so