nature.

"I have before now noticed your jealousy of your cousin," he observed.

Michael's face went white.

"That is infamous and untrue, father," he said.

Lord Ashbridge turned on him.

"Apologise for that," he said.

Michael looked up at his high towering without a tremor.

"I wait for the withdrawal of your accusation that I am jealous of
Francis," he replied.

There was a dead silence. Lord Ashbridge stood there in swollen and
speechless indignation, and Michael faced him undismayed. . . . And then
suddenly to the boy there came an impulse of pure pity for his father's
disappointment in having a son like himself. He saw with the candour
which was so real a part of him how hopeless it must be, to a man of his
father's mind, to have a millstone like himself unalterably bound round
his neck, fit to choke and drown him.

"Indeed, I am not jealous of Francis, father," he said, "and I speak
quite truthfully when I say how I sympathise with you in having a son
like me. I don't want to vex you. I want to make the best of myself."

Lord Ashbridge stood looking exactly like his statue in the market-place
at Ashbridge.

"If that is the case, Michael," he said, "it is within your power. You
will write the letter I spoke about."

Michael paused a moment as if waiting for more. It did not seem to him
possible that his appeal should bear no further fruit than that. But it
was soon clear that there was no more to come.

"I will wish you good night, father," he said.

Sunday was a day on which Lord Ashbridge was almost more himself than
during the week, so shining and public an example did he become of
the British nobleman. Instead of having breakfast, according to the
middle-class custom, rather later than usual, that solid sausagy meal
was half an hour earlier, so that all the servants, except those whose
presence in the house was imperatively necessary for purposes of lunch,
should go to church. Thus "Old George" and Lord Ashbridge's private boat
were exceedingly busy for the half-hour preceding church time, the last
boat-load holding the family, whose arrival was the signal for service
to begin. Lady Ashbridge, however, always went on earlier, for she
presided at the organ with the long, camel-like back turned towards the
congregation, and started playing a slow, melancholy voluntary when the
boy who blew the bellows said to her in an ecclesiastical whisper: "His
lordship has arrived, my lady." Those of the