onged for some little portion of the affection
lavished on his elder brother. He remembered how often he had in vain
looked to his mother for a smile of approbation, and how he had ever
been disappointed. He had grown up feeling that, by some fault not his
own, he was disliked and despised, a victim to one of those unreasoning
antipathies which parents sometimes feel for one of their children. He
remembered how he had choked down his anger, swallowed his tears, and
affected indifference to censure, until his child's heart had grown
case-hardened and steely; asking nothing, doing his tasks for his own
satisfaction, and finally taking a sad pleasure in that silence which
was so frequently imposed upon him. Then he had grown up, and the sullen
determination to outdo his brother in everything had got possession of
his strong nature. He remembered how, coming home from school, he had
presented his mother with the report which spoke of his final
examinations as brilliant compared with Alexander's; how his mother had
said a cold word of praise; and how he himself had turned silently away,
able already, in his young self-dependence, to rejoice secretly over his
victory, without demanding the least approbation from those who should
have loved him best. He remembered, when his brother was an ensign in
the guards, spoiled and reckless, making debts and getting into all
kinds of trouble, how he himself had labored at the dry work assigned to
him in the foreign office, without amusements, without pleasure, and
without pocket money, toiling day and night to win by force that
position which Alexander had got for nothing; never relaxing in his
exertions, and scrupulous in the performance of his duties. Even in the
present moment of anxiety he thought with satisfaction of his
well-earned advancement, and of the promotion which could not now be far
distant. He remembered himself a big, bony youth of twenty, and he
reflected that he had made himself what he now was, the accomplished
man of the world, the rising diplomatist among those of his years,
steadily moving on to success. But he saw that he was the same to-day as
he had been then; if he had not gained affection in his life, he had
gained strength and hardness and indifference to opposition.

Then this blow had come upon him. This brother, whom he had striven to
surpass in everything, had been suddenly and mysteriously taken from his
very side; and not that only, but the mother who h