"Not if you will be so good as to excuse me," replied Bergan, with a smile so frank, and a gesture so courteous, that the Major was irresistibly mollified. "A guest's wish is a command," said he, with one of his rare glimmers of courtesy. "But here comes the wine! I really cannot excuse you from that,--at least, I should be very loath to do so. I'll even join you in a glass. Here's to your mother's health and happiness!--you won't refuse to drink that, not on the place where she was raised." If Bergan was annoyed by his uncle's persistency, he forebore to show it. But, having duly honored the toast, he pushed his glass aside, and declined every invitation to have it refilled. "Well, well," said his uncle, at last, in a tone of resignation, "we won't quarrel about it now. But I see that your education is incomplete, and I shall take it upon myself to finish it. If I don't teach you to drink like a gentleman, in a month, I shall know that you are no true Bergan, in spite of your looks." Bergan only smiled. "Your temperance is the one thing I don't like about you," pursued his uncle, filling his own glass to the brim. "Ah, yes, there's one more;--your mother writes that you have studied law, and mean to practise it." "Yes; I received my license just two months ago." "Humph! it's well named! 'License,' indeed! Licensed to lie, cheat, steal,--or, at least, to help others to do so, which amounts to the same thing. No, no, Harry; it may be well to know law enough to keep from being imposed upon, but a Bergan can't stoop to practise it. Lawyers are, without exception, a set of miserable, lying, sneaking pettifoggers. You could drop the souls of a dozen into a child's thimble, and they'd rattle in the end of it after she had put it on her finger." Bergan's cheek flushed a little, but he was more impressed by the comic than the provoking side of his uncle's dogged prejudice, and he only answered, good-humoredly;-- "I am sorry that you should have had occasion to think so badly of the profession. I shall feel that it is incumbent upon me to make you change your opinion." "Never!" growled Major Bergan, with an oath. "You would find it easier to lift the Gibraltar rock on the point of a needle. Unless," he added, after a moment, "you can tell me how to make a suit lie against Godfrey Bergan. I've been trying it for ten years, and I've spent money enough to buy another plantation as large as this." "My uncle Godfrey!" exclaimed Bergan, in much surprise. "Why, what has he done?"