Sebastian Mallory was, and had been for years, his _bete noire_. He had seen him once, ten years ago, a handsome, fair-faced, ‘yellow-haired laddie’ of sixteen, who had come to look round his own works, with a somewhat listless gaze. Myles’s vigorous soul had been filled with contempt for him at that moment, and he had never seen fit to alter that feeling. All he heard of Sebastian Mallory was exactly contrary to his ideas of what a _man_--unless the man were some irresponsible person, with neither business nor estate in the background--ought to be and do. He had a very strong sense of duty himself, and never, so far as he knew, left a duty unperformed. He struggled hard, according to his light, to do what was right; consequently he felt himself in a position to be somewhat censorious upon those who, he considered, obviously did not fulfil their duties--duties to their property, their dependents, their privileges, to him--such persons as this very Sebastian Mallory. Therefore he smiled somewhat grimly to himself as he imagined that lily-handed, yellow-haired, delicate-looking young man coming to take his place at the head of affairs at such a crisis as was striding towards Lancashire--a storm which it would take the keenest heads, the strongest hands, the most practised eyes of the wariest business men who should succeed in weathering it. Probably Mr. Sebastian Mallory, if he did come, would cut a sorry spectacle, and would soon be glad to retire again to more congenial scenes abroad. He did not feel it his duty to excite Mrs. Heywood’s disagreeable remarks by reading aloud what he justly considered ‘balderdash’ to Edmund; he therefore suggested that they should go and take a turn on the Townfield. Edmund, who for some reason was in a more unhappy temper than usual, shrugged his shoulders, and said he did not feel inclined to go out. ‘No? Then I must go by myself, I suppose,’ said Myles. But he made no immediate effort to leave the house. He seated himself at the table with a book, and might possibly have remained in the house, but for his mother, who having ascertained that his book was entitled ‘The History of Rationalism,’ announced that the bitterest grief of her declining years consisted in having to see a son of hers growing up an infidel, or worse. She hunted under the Family Bible, and produced a tract, which she offered him in lieu of the work he was reading. It bore the alluring title, ‘Thou also, Worm!’ And on his refusing this tit-bit of religious badinage, she put it aside with a bitter smile, and an audibly expressed hope that it might not in the future go too hardly with those who had spurned the means of grace proffered by a mother’s hand.