m because
he makes for a man of my remote generation. Tailors are keen observers
and do not grow out of date so quickly as politicians."

The words were said with a playful good-humour very uncommon to Mr.
Darrell. The intention was obviously kind and kinsmanlike. Lionel sprang
to his feet; his lip curled, his eye flashed, and his crest rose.

"No, sir; I will not stoop to this! I will not be clothed by your
charity,--yours! I will not submit to an implied taunt upon my poor
mother's ignorance of the manners of a rank to which she was not born!
You said we might not like each other, and, if so, we should part
forever. I do not like you, and I will go!" He turned abruptly, and
walked to the house--magnanimous. If Mr. Darrell had not been the most
singular of men, he might well have been offended. As it was, though few
were less accessible to surprise, he was surprised. But offended? Judge
for yourself. "I declare," muttered Guy Darrell, gazing on the boy's
receding figure, "I declare that I almost feel as if I could once again
be capable of an emotion! I hope I am not going to like that boy! The
old Darrell blood in his veins, surely. I might have spoken as he did at
his age, but I must have had some better reason for it. What did I say
to justify such an explosion?

"_Quid feci?--ubi lapsus?_ Gone, no doubt, to pack up his knapsack, and
take the Road to Ruin! Shall I let him go? Better for me, if I am really
in danger of liking him; and so be at his mercy to sting--what? my
heart! I defy him; it is dead. No; he shall not go thus. I am the head
of our joint houses. Houses! I wish he had a house, poor boy! And his
grandfather loved me. Let him go? I will beg his pardon first; and he
may dine in his drawers if that will settle the matter."

Thus, no less magnanimous than Lionel, did this misanthropical man
follow his ungracious cousin. "Ha!" cried Darrell, suddenly, as,
approaching the threshold, he saw Mr. Fairthorn at the dining-room
window occupied in nibbing a pen upon an ivory thumb-stall--"I have hit
it! That abominable Fairthorn has been shedding its prickles! How could
I trust flesh and blood to such a bramble? I'll know what it was this
instant!" Vain menace! No sooner did Mr. Fairthorn catch glimpse
of Darrell's countenance within ten yards of the porch, than, his
conscience taking alarm, he rushed incontinent from the window, the
apartment, and, ere Darrell could fling open the door, was lost in some
lair--"