"Oh, all right, I'll come," said Cyril, impatiently. "Hang it, Frank, if you were half a brother you'd go halves with me, and take me back to your place. I'm sick of this life. There's a lecture about something, I suppose." "Caning, I should think," said Frank, with a sneering laugh. "There, go and get it over; and look here, I'll give up Lewby to-day, and drive over with you to Gatley. Let's get a game at billiards and dine with Artingale. It's no use to have a lord after your sister if you don't make use of him." "All right. No. I've an engagement to-night." "Go and keep it then, and be hanged. I shall go to Lewby," growled Frank. "Blackberrying?" sneered Cyril. "I say, mind you don't `Rue' going." "If you say that again, Cil, I'll get up and kick you," growled Frank. "Every fellow isn't such a blackguard as you." "Oh no," laughed Cyril, "especially not dear brother Frank. There, I'm off." "You're a beauty, Cil!" growled Frank, and he lit a fresh cigar. "Share! Go halves with me! Ha, ha, ha! I dare say he would. How people do believe in stories of the gold mines. I wonder whether anything is to be made out of that poet fool." "Want to talk to me, father?" said Cyril, entering the room where his mother lay upon the couch, with a terrible look of anxiety upon her pallid face. "Oh, let's see; will my smoking worry you, mamma?" "Always so thoughtful for me," said the fond mother to herself. Then aloud-- "I don't mind it, Cyril, but I don't think your father--" She stopped short, for the Rector interrupted her, sternly. "Is an invalid lady's room a suitable place for smoking pipes, Cyril?" "Don't see that it matters what the place is so long as the invalid don't mind. But there, don't make a bother about it," he cried, tapping the burning tobacco out on to the hob; "I can wait until I go down again." "Shall we go down, papa?" said Julia, rising with Cynthia from where they sat in the window. "No, my dears; you must hear what I am going to say, so you may as well hear it now." "Oh, no, Eli," moaned the invalid. "Very well, my dears, you had better go," said the Rector, and he led his daughters to the door, which he opened and closed after them with quiet dignity. "Row on!" muttered Cyril. "Well, ma, dear, how are you?" "Not--not quite so well, Cyril," she said, fondly; and her voice trembled, as she dreaded a scene. "Will you come and sit down here by me?" she added, pointing to a chair. "Yes, I may as well," he said, laughingly, "and you can take care of me, for I see somebody means mischief." The Rector bit his lips, for his was a painful task. He wished to utter a severe reprimand, and to appeal to the young man's sense of right and wrong, while here at the outset was the mother bird spreading her protecting wing before her errant chick, and ready, the Rector saw, to stand up boldly in his defence.