'Dear Leslie,--sorry you are out--come and see us--_Do!_' "You will go, Randal?" said Mrs Leslie, after a pause. "I am not sure." "Yes, _you_ can go; _you_ have clothes like a gentleman; _you_ can go anywhere, not like those children;" and Mrs Leslie glanced almost spitefully on poor Oliver's coarse threadbare jacket, and little Juliet's torn frock. "What I have I owe at present to Mr Egerton, and I should consult his wishes; he is not on good terms with these Hazeldeans." Then glancing towards his brother, who looked mortified, he added with a strange sort of haughty kindness, "What I may have hereafter, Oliver, I shall owe to myself; and then, if I rise, I will raise my family." "Dear Randal," said Mrs Leslie, fondly kissing him on the forehead, "what a good heart you have!" "No, mother; my books don't tell me that it is a good heart that gets on in the world; it is a hard head," replied Randal with a rude and scornful candour. "But I can read no more just now; come out, Oliver." So saying, he slid from his mother's hand and left the room. When Oliver joined him, Randal was already on the common; and, without seeming to notice his brother, he continued to walk quickly and with long strides in profound silence. At length he paused under the shade of an old oak, that, too old to be of value save for firewood, had escaped the axe. The tree stood on a knoll, and the spot commanded a view of the decayed house--the old dilapidated church--the dismal dreary village. "Oliver," said Randal between his teeth, so that his voice had the sound of a hiss, "it was under this tree that I first resolved to--" He paused. "What, Randal?" "Read hard; knowledge is power!" "But you are so fond of reading." "I!" cried Randal. "Do you think, when Wolsey and Thomas-à-Becket became priests, they were fond of telling their beads and pattering Aves?--I fond of reading!" Oliver stared; the historical allusions were beyond his comprehension. "You know," continued Randal, "that we Leslies were not always the beggarly poor gentlemen we are now. You know that there is a man who lives in Grosvenor Square, and is very rich--very. His riches come to him from a Leslie; that man is my patron, Oliver, and he is very good to me." Randal's smile was withering as he spoke. "Come on," he said, after a pause--"come on." Again the walk was quicker, and the brothers were silent. They came at length to a little shallow brook, across which some large stones had been placed at short intervals, so that the boys walked over the ford dryshod. "Will you pull me down that bough, Oliver?" said Randal abruptly, pointing to a tree. Oliver obeyed mechanically; and Randal, stripping the leaves, and snapping off the twigs, left a fork at the end; with this he began to remove the stepping-stones. "What are you about, Randal?" asked Oliver, wonderingly.