season as a relief from
the dulness and monotony of home. Used to the lively conversation of
foreigners, and passionately fond of the society of the other sex, the
seclusion of Oak Hall was not very congenial to his taste. He soon
ceased to take an interest in the domestic arrangements of the family,
and the violin and guitar, on which he performed with great taste and
skill, were alike discarded, and he imprudently afforded his brother
daily opportunities of poisoning his father's mind against him, while he
was lounging away his time in the houses of the neighboring gentry.

To his father, Mark affected, to commiserate the weakness of his
brother's intellect, and the frivolity of his pursuits. He commented
without mercy on his idle extravagant habits--his foreign air and
Frenchified manners, invidiously adding up the large sums he had already
squandered, and the expense which his father must still be at to
maintain him genteely, either in the army or at the bar. He always ended
his remarks with an observation, which he knew to be the most galling to
the pride of the old man.

"He will be just such a useless despicable fellow as his uncle Alfred,
and will be the same burden to me that that accomplished unprincipled
fool was to you."

The Squire only lent too ready an ear to the base insinuations of his
eldest son; and when Algernon returned from the field, he found his
father's manners yet more repulsive than his brother's. As Mr.
Hurdlestone's affection for his youngest born diminished, Mark's
appeared miraculously to increase. He even condescended to give Algernon
various friendly hints to lose no opportunity of re-establishing
himself in his father's favor. But such conduct was too specious even to
deceive the unsuspicious, kind-hearted Algernon. He detected the
artifice, and scorned the hypocrite. Instead of absenting himself from
the family circle for a few hours, he was now abroad all day, and
sometimes for a whole week, without leaving any clue to discover his
favorite haunts.

Mark at length took the alarm. A jealous fear shot through his brain,
and he employed spies to dog his path. His suspicions were confirmed
when he was at length informed by Grenard Pike, the gardener's son, that
Mr. Algernon seldom went a mile beyond the precincts of the park. His
hours, consequently, must be loitered away in some dwelling near at
hand. Algernon was not a young man of sentimental habits. He was neither
poet nor bookwo