"I am glad to see Colonel Wilton," he said, in a low, sweet voice, which must have been peculiarly charming before age had thinned its tones.--"You may leave us, Mr. Robbins," he added; whereupon the young man at the writing-table took up his papers and departed.--"I am obliged to you," continued Lord St. George, "for obeying my summons so promptly; it was more than I expected, considering how often you must have been in town without calling upon your recluse kinsman." "My dear lord," said Colonel Wilton, with a frank smile, taking the chair placed for him, "I never thought a visit from me would be acceptable. I supposed that I must excite the natural aversion which is generally felt for junior and unendowed relatives, so I kept out of the way." Colonel Wilton's voice was not unlike his host's, though deeper and richer. "Unendowed or not, you are almost the only relative who has never asked me a favor," returned the old man. "Had I wanted anything I suppose I should have asked for it," said Colonel Wilton, good-humoredly; "but my ambition is professional, and fortune has favored me beyond my deserts." "You are a young colonel." "Only brevet." "Ay, I remember; you got your first step after that affair of the rifle-pits." "Exactly; then I volunteered for our second battalion when the mutiny broke out, saw a good deal of very unpleasant service, was slightly hit, got fever, more from fatigue than wounds, was ordered home on sick leave, and found my brevet awaiting me. I have just returned from the German baths--and now, my lord, I am at your service." "You want to know why I sent for you--you shall hear presently;" the old men paused abruptly. "You are like, and yet unlike, your father," he resumed; "you know, I suppose, that, although but first cousins, we might have been brothers, we hated each other so well?" "I have heard something of it," returned Wilton, coolly, though the smiling, frank expression passed from his face; "but I have lived so much among strangers that I am lamentably ignorant of the family hatreds." Lord St. George looked up, and played more rapidly with his seals. "I have been a broken man for many years," he resumed, after a short pause, "and latterly a complete recluse. Men are such knaves, and life is such a round of folly, amusement, and ambition, and 'lofty aspirations,' as modern scribblers have it, such dust and ashes, that I can with unusual truth say I am weary! I dare say you are wondering why I inflict this Jeremiad upon you--I hardly know myself; however, it is finished. I suppose you are aware that a very small portion of my property is attached to the title of St. George?"