I was shocked to notice how inertly my father listened to the oath, and I recalled, with a sudden sense of distress, what my aunt had said of my father’s state of mind. The young are accustomed to take for granted the permanency of health in their elders, and to look upon them as unchanging institutions, until, in some sad way, reminded of the frailty of all living things. As I went in, Arthur rose, looked sharply at me, and said, “Let me present my cousin, Mr. Hugh Wynne, Colonel Tarleton.” I bowed to the officer, who lacked the politeness to rise, merely saying, “Pleased to see you, Mr. Wynne.” “We were talking,” said Arthur, “when you came of the fight at the river with the queer name--Brandywine, isn’t it?” “No,” said my father; “thou art mistaken, and I wished to ask thee, Arthur, what was it thou wert saying. We had ceased to speak of the war. Yes; it was of thy brother.” “What of thy brother?” said I, glad of this opening. “Oh, nothing, except Colonel Tarleton had news he was not so well.” He was so shrewd as to think I must have overheard enough to make it useless to lie to me. A lie, he used to say, was a reserve not to be called into service except when all else failed. “Oh, was that all?” I returned. “I did hear, Cousin Arthur, that the Wyncote estate was growing to be valuable again; some coal or iron had been found.” “So my mother writes me,” said Tarleton. “We are old friends of your family.” “You know,” I said, “we are the elder branch.” I was bent on discovering, if possible, the cause of my cousin’s annoyance whenever Wyncote was mentioned. “I wish it were true about our getting rich,” said Arthur, with the relaxed look about the jaw I had come to know so well; it came as he began to speak. “If it were anything but idle gossip, Tarleton, what would it profit a poor devil of a younger son? They did find coal, but it came to nothing; and indeed I learn they lost money in the end.” “I have so heard,” said my father, in a dull way. “Who was it told me? I forget. They lost money.”’ I looked at him amazed. Who could have told him but Arthur, and why? Until a year back his memory had been unfailing. I saw a queer look, part surprise, part puzzle, go over Tarleton’s face, a slight frown above, as slight a smile below. I fancy he meant to twit my cousin for he said to me: “And so you are of the elder branch, Mr. Hugh Wynne. How is that, Arthur? How did the elder branch chance to lose that noble old house?” My cousin sat rapping with his fingers on the table what they used to call the “devil’s tattoo,” regarding me with steady, half-shut eyes--a too frequent and not well-mannered way he had, and one I much disliked. He said nothing, nor had he a chance, for I instantly answered the colonel: “My father can tell you.” “About what, Hugh?” “About how we lost our Welsh estate.” My father at this lifted his great bulk upright in the old Penn chair, and seemed more alive. “It is Colonel Tarleton who asks, not I.”