you mean my hopes of you,' said Ethel, with a swelling heart, 'as
long as you do your duty--for--for the highest reason, they will only
take another course, and I will try to think it the right one.'

Ethel had mentally made this interview the test of her regard for
Leonard. She had failed, and so had her test; her influence had not
succeeded, but it had not snapped; the boy, in all his wilfulness, had
been too much for her, and she could no longer condemn and throw him
off!

Oh! why will not the rights and wrongs of this world be more clearly
divided!

CHAPTER XI

The stream was deeper than I thought
When first I ventured here,
I stood upon its sloping edge
Without a rising fear.--H. BONAR

It was a comfort to find that the brothers parted on good terms. The
elder was beholden to the younger for the acquiescence that removed the
odium of tyranny from the expulsion, and when the one great disturbance
had silenced the ephemeral dissensions that had kept both minds in a
constant state of irritation, Henry wanted, by kindness and
consideration, to prove to himself and the world that Leonard's real
interests were his sole object; and Leonard rejoiced in being at peace,
so long as his pride and resolution were not sacrificed. He went off
as though his employment had been the unanimous choice of the family,
carrying with him his dog, his rifle, his fishing-rod, his fossils, and
all his other possessions, but with the understanding that his Sundays
were to be passed at home, by way of safeguard to his religion and
morals, bespeaking the care and consideration of his senior, as Henry
assured himself and Mrs. Pugh, and tried to persuade his sister and Dr.
May.

But Dr. May was more implacable than all the rest. He called Henry's
action the deed of Joseph's brethren, and viewed the matter as the
responsible head of a family; he had a more vivid contemporaneous
knowledge of the Axworthy antecedents, and he had been a witness to
Henry's original indignant repudiation of such a destiny for his
brother. He was in the mood of a man whose charity had endured long,
and refused to condemn, but whose condemnation, when forced from him,
was therefore doubly strong. The displeasure of a loving charitable
man is indeed a grave misfortune.

Never had he known a more selfish and unprincipled measure,
deliberately flying in the face of his parents' known wishes before
they had been a year in their graves, ex