ly recovered, he called upon her. What took place at the
visit never transpired, but next day Mrs. E. Caresfoot left her native
place never to return, the child remaining with the father, or rather
with the uncle. That boy was George. At the time when this story opens
both his parents were dead: his father from illness resulting from
entire failure of brain power, the mother from drink.

Whether it was that he considered the circumstance of the lad's birth
entitled him to peculiar consideration, or that he transferred to him
the affection he bore his father, the result was that his nephew was
quite as dear if not even dearer to Mr. Caresfoot than his own son.
Not, however, that he allowed his preference to be apparent, save in
the negative way that he was blind to faults in George that he was
sufficiently quick to note in Philip. To observers this partiality
seemed the more strange when they thought upon Philip's bonny face and
form, and then noted how the weak-brained father and coarse-blooded
mother had left their mark in George's thick lips, small, restless
eyes, pallid complexion, and loose-jointed form.

When Philip shook off his cousin's grasp and vanished towards the
lake, he did so with bitter wrath and hatred in his heart, for he saw
but too clearly that he had deeply injured himself in his father's
estimation, and, what was more, he felt that so much as he had sunk
his side of the balance, by so much he had raised up that of George.
He was inculpated; a Bellamy came upon the scene to save George, and,
what was worse, an untruthful Bellamy; he was the aggressor, and
George the meek in spirit with the soft answer that turneth away
wrath. It was intolerable; he hated his father, he hated George. There
was no justice in the world, and he had not wit to play rogue with
such a one as his cousin. Appearances were always against him; he
hated everybody.

And then he began to think that there was in the very next parish
somebody whom he did not hate, but who, on the contrary, interested
him, and was always ready to listen to his troubles, and he also
became aware of the fact that whilst his mind had been thinking his
legs had been walking, and that he was very near the abode of that
person--almost at its gates, in short. He paused and looked at his
watch; it had stopped at half-past eleven, the one blow that George
had succeeded in planting upon him having landed on it, to the great
detriment of both the watch and t