ous ambition.

Between the brothers there was the strangest mixture of affection and
repulsion. The elder smiled at the excitement and energy of the younger;
the younger openly despised the studious habits and solitary life of the
elder. In time of real trouble and difficulty they would have been drawn
together; as it was, there was little communion; the one went his way,
and the other his. There was perhaps rather an inclination to detract
from each other's achievements that to praise them, a species of
jealousy or envy without personal dislike, if that can be understood.
They were good friends, and yet kept apart.

Oliver made friends of all, and thwacked and banged his enemies into
respectful silence. Felix made friends of none, and was equally despised
by nominal friends and actual enemies. Oliver was open and jovial; Felix
reserved and contemptuous, or sarcastic in manner. His slender frame,
too tall for his width, was against him; he could neither lift the
weights nor undergo the muscular strain readily borne by Oliver. It was
easy to see that Felix, although nominally the eldest, had not yet
reached his full development. A light complexion, fair hair and eyes,
were also against him; where Oliver made conquests, Felix was
unregarded. He laughed, but perhaps his secret pride was hurt.

There was but one thing Felix could do in the way of exercise and sport.
He could shoot with the bow in a manner till then entirely unapproached.
His arrows fell unerringly in the centre of the target, the swift deer
and the hare were struck down with ease, and even the wood-pigeon in
full flight. Nothing was safe from those terrible arrows. For this, and
this only, his fame had gone forth; and even this was made a source of
bitterness to him.

The nobles thought no arms worthy of men of descent but the sword and
lance; missile weapons, as the dart and arrow, were the arms of
retainers. His degradation was completed when, at a tournament, where he
had mingled with the crowd, the Prince sent for him to shoot at the
butt, and display his skill among the soldiery, instead of with the
knights in the tilting ring. Felix shot, indeed, but shut his eyes that
the arrow might go wide, and was jeered at as a failure even in that
ignoble competition. Only by an iron self-control did he refrain that
day from planting one of the despised shafts in the Prince's eye.

But when Oliver joked him about his failure, Felix asked him to hang up
his