I care more about the provision on these points than I do for the interests of old Chillingly Gordon's son. I had meant to behave very handsomely to the father; and when the return for behaving handsomely is being put into Chancery--A Worm Will Turn. Nevertheless, I agree with you that a son should not be punished for his father's faults; and, if the sacrifice of L20,000 makes you and myself feel that we are better Christians and truer gentlemen, we shall buy that feeling very cheaply. Sir Peter then proceeded, half jestingly, half seriously, to combat Kenelm's declaration that he was not in love with Cecilia Travers; and, urging the advantages of marriage with one whom Kenelm allowed would be a perfect wife, astutely remarked that unless Kenelm had a son of his own it did not seem to him quite just to the next of kin to will the property from him, upon no better plea than the want of love for his native country. "He would love his country fast enough if he had 10,000 acres in it." Kenelm shook his head when he came to this sentence. "Is even then love for one's country but cupboard-love after all?" said he; and he postponed finishing the perusal of his father's letter. CHAPTER VII. KENELM CHILLINGLY did not exaggerate the social position he had acquired when he classed himself amongst the lions of the fashionable world. I dare not count the number of three-cornered notes showered upon him by the fine ladies who grow romantic upon any kind of celebrity; or the carefully sealed envelopes, containing letters from fair Anonymas, who asked if he had a heart, and would be in such a place in the Park at such an hour. What there was in Kenelm Chillingly that should make him thus favoured, especially by the fair sex, it would be difficult to say, unless it was the two-fold reputation of being unlike other people, and of being unaffectedly indifferent to the gain of any reputation at all. He might, had he so pleased, have easily established a proof that the prevalent though vague belief in his talents was not altogether unjustified. For the articles he had sent from abroad to "The Londoner" and by which his travelling expenses were defrayed, had been stamped by that sort of originality in tone and treatment which rarely fails to excite curiosity as to the author, and meets with more general praise than perhaps it deserves. But Mivers was true to his contract to preserve inviolable the incognito of the author, and Kenelm regarded with profound contempt the articles themselves and the readers who praised them. Just as misanthropy with some persons grows out of benevolence disappointed, so there are certain natures--and Kenelm Chillingly's was perhaps one of them--in which indifferentism grows out of earnestness baffled.