dislike to poor Kenelm? He seemed partial
enough to him once."

"Ay, but not as a son-in-law, even before I had a chance of becoming so.
And when, after Kenelm appeared at Exmundham, while Travers was staying
there, Travers learned, I suppose from Lady Chillingly, that Kenelm had
fallen in love with and wanted to marry some other girl, who it
seems rejected him; and still more when he heard that Kenelm had been
subsequently travelling on the Continent in company with a low-lived
fellow, the drunken, riotous son of a farrier, you may well conceive how
so polished and sensible a man as Leopold Travers would dislike the
idea of giving his daughter to one so little likely to make an agreeable
son-in-law. Bah! I have no fear of Kenelm. By the way, did Sir Peter say
if Kenelm had quite recovered his health? He was at death's door some
eighteen months ago, when Sir Peter and Lady Chillingly were summoned to
town by the doctors."

"My dear Gordon, I fear there is no chance of your succession to
Exmundham. Sir Peter says that his wandering Hercules is as stalwart
as ever, and more equable in temperament, more taciturn and grave,--in
short, less odd. But when you say you have no fear of Kenelm's rivalry,
do you mean only as to Cecilia Travers?"

"Neither as to that nor as to anything in life; and as to the succession
to Exmundham, it is his to leave as he pleases, and I have cause to
think he would never leave it to me. More likely to Parson John or the
parson's son,--or why not to yourself? I often think that for the prizes
immediately set before my ambition I am better off without land: land is
a great obfuscator."

"Humph, there is some truth in that. Yet the fear of land and
obfuscation does not seem to operate against your suit to Cecilia
Travers?"

"Her father is likely enough to live till I maybe contented to 'rest and
be thankful' in the Upper House; and I should not like to be a landless
peer."

"You are right there; but I should tell you that, now Kenelm has come
back, Sir Peter has set his heart on his son's being your rival."

"For Cecilia?"

"Perhaps; but certainly for Parliamentary reputation. The senior member
for the county means to retire, and Sir Peter has been urged to allow
his son to be brought forward,--from what I hear, with the certainty of
success."

"What! in spite of that wonderful speech of his on coming of age?"

"Pooh! that is now understood to have been but a bad joke on the new
ideas