of common-sense, my boy, and so I don't mind telling you that your father made a very impossible proposition to me, and I had to refuse to accept it, and then he worked himself up into a temper, and when I rather foolishly tried to laugh it off with some harmless joke about young Dick, he took offence, and-well, in fact, he went away in a rage." "About Dick?" exclaimed Graham. "Well, that is bad. Not that it mightn't have been worse-it might have been about- However, he had just checked himself in time, and had managed to suppress the word "money," which was in his thoughts and almost on his lips. "He is not generally so touchy about Dick. But do you want me to do anything, Lord Leuchars ? I am afraid that I should make a very indifferent ambassador, but I will do my best."

"I know you will, my boy, in that and anything else," answered Lord Leuchars warmly; "and by the way, Graham, don't you go and lay too much stress on anything my lady says she is a bit of a martinet about the duties of young men-yes, and of young women too," and he smiled as the recollection of certain passages of arms between his wife and his self-willed daughter occurred to his memory. "Just you remember that you have two very staunch friends in this house who are always glad to see you or your brother. But now about this matter," and he shortly put the young man in possession of the circumstances that had led to his father's violent outbreak.

"Of course you couldn't say or do anything else," said Graham at the conclusion of the narrative, "and of course the grievance about the gamekeeper was only a convenient peg to hang a hat upon, but I am very sorry that it has fallen out this way all the same. The chances are that my father will have gone home and fallen foul of Dick, and then there will be ructions. It's an odd thing, you know, that, though there is no doubt that my father cares more for Dick's little finger than he does about my whole body, you or anybody else might have called me a horse-coper

and he would not have minded: all the same, he is awfully down on the boy at times."

"A queer way of showing of affection," interposed Lord Leuchars, thinking of his own relations with Betty.

"Oh, that is right enough, but it is his way all the same. I am not worth powder and shot, I suppose, and Dick is. Anyhow, he is often falling foul of Dick, and Dick does not manage him very well on those occasions. He is a

clever young beggar, as you know, and when he thinks, or perhaps knows, that he is in the right, he tries to argue with my father, and that is fatal. I think I learnt wisdom in that direction by seeing how perfectly my poor mother always managed him, and of course Dick, poor boy, was too young to understand it, and besides I never had brains enough to argue. Dick has monopolised the brains that were meant for the pair of us. But there, it is no good talking the sooner I get home under the circumstances the better. Good night and good-bye, and thank you, Lord Leuchars."

"Good night, Graham, my boy, and God bless you!" said Lord Leuchars, warmly pressing the young man's hand. "I think you will carry through your life a good deal that you did learn from your dear mother, and that is something better than mere cleverness. You will do your best with your father, I know," and so they parted.

15

CHAPTER III.

RETROSPECTION.

As Lord Leuchars slowly retraced his steps to the drawingroom his heart felt very soft towards the young man from whom he had just parted. He was a busy man himself, as chairman of the County Council and sundry local committees ; often absent from home in that period of the year when he was nominally resident at his country seat, and an indefatigable attendant in the House of Lords during the parliamentary session. And as Graham Loder was quartered at Windsor, and seldom found the time or the inclination to spend more than a casual day in London, there was nothing wonderful in the fact that the two had only met at rare intervals during the past few years.

"Just like he was as a boy-not spoilt in any way whatever;" and having uttered this conclusion half aloud, Lord Leuchars nodded his head approvingly, for several things in their late conversation had appealed to his lordship very strongly. Apart from the young man's evident conviction that he was no favourite with his father, that it was on Jacob rather than on Esau that with all goodwill the Squire's blessing-however a dubious form it might take-would assuredly descend, there was complete absence of any trace of resentment against the father or jealousy of the more favoured brother; and even the naive confession of the latter's superior intellectual powers

had

been made with the air of a man who speaks of a thing that is self-evident to his hearer as well as to himself.

That Graham Loder had, after one failure, only won his way into Sandhurst by downright hard work and rigid self-denial, while, on the contrary, Dick, who was at Marlborough, had without undue exertion fairly swept the board of the school prizes, were facts well within Lord Leuchars' knowledge. And he was furthermore aware that it was only owing to the elder brother's calm insistence on the carrying out of the late Mrs Loder's wishes that the younger boy had been kept at school instead of being allowed to run wild at home, a willing victim to his father's caprices.

"The place is dull without the boy," argued the Squire; "I like to hear the sound of his voice about."

"You hear plenty of that in the holidays, sir," was the quiet answer. "If Dick was never to be under any discipline at all, he would soon become an intolerable nuisance. He is made for better things than to be perpetually loafing about with gamekeepers and stable-boys."

"And what the devil is the good of all this book-learning, I should like to know? I looked into one of his prizes the other day and could not make head or tail of any two words."

"If you will ask Lord Leuchars, sir, he will tell good education is never thrown away."

you that а

"D-n Leuchars !" growled the Squire. And yet after due reflection he did one morning broach the subject to his lordship.

"I don't quite grasp the object of this infernal conspiracy between Graham and yourself to keep young Dick's nose to the grindstone, Leuchars. Perhaps you can tell me what the devil good is likely to come of it. I tried to get it out of Graham, but he-well, Graham is an ass."

"Hey, hey, what are you talking about, man? You leave Graham alone—he is as sound and as right-minded a lad as I ever met. But conspiracy, nose to the grindstone, eh? Do you mean the boy's education? You would not like a sharp

boy like that to grow up without knowing anything except what he learns from- and he hesitated—" well, from my

gamekeeper, we'll say."

The Squire made no direct reply to this remark. His views as to the form of education suitable to a boy in these days of competition might possibly have been interesting, but his present rôle was to grumble rather than to argue.

"All I know is that this d-d schooling costs a pretty penny," he grumbled. "More than £500 I have paid for the young rascal already, and there seems to be no end to it."

Lord Leuchars laughed drily, as having strong private grounds for doubting the accuracy of this statement, but thought it prudent to forego any discussion as to the source from which the ways and means for Dick's education were being provided.

"And a very good investment of money too, my dear Loder. With those talents and a good education the boy may be anything he chooses to be some day. Who knows that he won't wake up some morning to find himself Lord Chancellor or Archbishop of Canterbury?"

"I know it, and so do you," was the retort. "He is much more likely to find himself in Hanwell, or some such infernal place."

"Well, well, not quite at the top of the tree, perhaps ;" and after making this concession Lord Leuchars went on in his cheery way" but, at any rate, he will be quite able to earn a very good livelihood as a barrister or as a parson. Why, my dear fellow, there is no reason why he should not become rector of Barnwick here: it's in my gift, you know-£800 a-year and a good house, if things work out right."

And this good-natured, though rather rash and premature, suggestion made some four years ago, the Squire, though nothing more had been said at the time, had construed and registered in his own mind as a definite promise. It was curious how rigidly he had kept his own counsel in the matter, never

B