lie wholly in his own scale, was in truth to
be found in the opposite scale on his brother's side of the balance.
Very slowly and reluctantly indeed was he brought to admit this at all,
and, even when he was constrained to do so, he by no means surrendered
at discretion to his aunt's view of the matter, but fought against it
most vigorously, even when his conscience reproved him most loudly. And
thus it was that a day or two after his conversation with Miss
Huntingdon on the moral courage exhibited by Colonel Gardiner, he was
rather glad of an opportunity that presented itself of exhibiting his
brother in an unamiable light, and "trotting him out with his shabby old
horsecloth on," as he expressed it, for the amusement of himself and
friends. It was on a summer evening, and very hot, so that Miss
Huntingdon, her two nephews, and two young men, friends of Walter, were
enjoying tea and strawberries in a large summer-house which faced a
sloping lawn enamelled with flower-beds glowing with masses of richly
tinted flowers. Mr Huntingdon was not with them, as this was Bench
day, and he was dining after business hours with a brother magistrate.
Walter, full of life and spirits, rattled away to his heart's content,
laughing boisterously at his own jokes, which he poured forth the more
continuously because he saw that Amos was more than usually indisposed
to merriment.

"By-the-by, Tom," he said suddenly to one of his companions, "what about
the boat-race? When is it to come off?"

"In September," replied his friend. "But we are in a little difficulty.
You know Sir James has lent us the Park for the occasion, and a capital
thing it will be; for we can make a good two miles of it by rowing round
the ornamental water twice. It is to be a four-oared match; four
Cambridge against four Oxford men, old or young, it doesn't matter. It
is to be part of the fun on the coming of age of Sir James's eldest son.
I rather think he was born on the eighth. Young James is a Cambridge
man and a capital oar, and I'm of the same college, and so is Harrison
here, as you know, and we shall have no difficulty in finding a fourth;
but we are rather puzzled about the Oxford men. We can calculate upon
three, but don't know where to look for the fourth. I wish, Walter,
you'd been old enough, and a member of the university."

"Ay, Tom, I wish I had been. But, by-the-by, there's no difficulty
after all. Here's Amos, an Oxford man, and a very