orning after this Sir Peregrine had made his offer, and then
she felt that the division between her and her boy would be wider
than ever. And all this had come of that inheritance which she had
demanded so eagerly for her child.

And now Lucius was sitting alone in his room at Orley Farm, having,
for the present, given up all idea of attempting anything himself by
means of the law. He had made his way into Mr. Dockwrath's office,
and had there insulted the attorney in the presence of witnesses. His
hope now was that the attorney might bring an action against him. If
that were done he would thus have the means of bringing out all the
facts of the case before a jury and a judge. It was fixed in his mind
that if he could once drag that reptile before a public tribunal,
and with loud voice declare the wrong that was being done, all might
be well. The public would understand and would speak out, and the
reptile would be scorned and trodden under foot. Poor Lucius! It
is not always so easy to catch public sympathy, and it will occur
sometimes that the wrong reptile is crushed by the great public heel.

He had his books before him as he sat there--his Latham and his
Pritchard, and he had the jawbone of one savage and the skull of
another. His Liverpool bills for unadulterated guano were lying on
the table, and a philosophical German treatise on agriculture which
he had resolved to study. It became a man, he said to himself, to do
a man's work in spite of any sorrow. But, nevertheless, as he sat
there, his studies were but of little service to him. How many men
have declared to themselves the same thing, but have failed when the
trial came! Who, can command the temper and the mind? At ten I will
strike the lyre and begin my poem. But at ten the poetic spirit is
under a dark cloud--because the water for the tea had not boiled when
it was brought in at nine. And so the lyre remains unstricken.

And Lucius found that he could not strike his lyre. For days he had
sat there and no good note had been produced. And then he had walked
over his land, having a farming man at his heels, thinking that he
could turn his mind to the actual and practical working of his land.
But little good had come of that either. It was January, and the land
was sloppy and half frozen. There was no useful work to be done on
it. And then what farmer Greenwood had once said of him was true
enough, "The young maister's spry and active surely, but he can't le