It was while smarting under the first wounds inflicted by disappointed ambition and frustrated love of power that Lady Millicent discovered the bitter truth that as we sow so we must reap, and that there can be no harvest of affection where the seeds of tenderness have been neglected to be sown. The news--very melancholy intelligence it was to his brother and his sisters--that Arthur Vavasour had, for an indefinite period, bade farewell to home and country, child and kindred, was communicated to Lady Millicent by her son Horace. He, the younger brother, who had always been in secret very impatient of parental control, and whose strong affection for his elder brother had ever been a marked and amiable feature of his character, was roused by the departure of Arthur to the strongest feelings of displeasure against the mother whose unfeeling conduct had, in his opinion, been the cause of her son’s expatriation. Walking one morning unannounced into the dull morning-room in which Lady Millicent, now that the occupation of her life was over, sat brooding over the turpitude and cowardice of lawyers, and the general injustice and stupidity of all connected with wills and will-making, Horace Vavasour took the liberty of giving his mother a piece of his mind. “So, ma’am,” he began, his lips pale with agitation, and his voice (Horace was a little shaken by a year’s dissipation) a trifle difficult to steady,--“so, ma’am, Arthur’s off--gone--bolted. This confounded law-business put the finishing-stroke to his affairs, poor fellow! I knew how it would be. He never had a chance of doing well--never, by G--!” and Horace, who was standing near some greenhouse plants in full flower, whirled his light riding-whip lasso-like over their heads, thereby ruthlessly severing some half-dozen from their parent stems. Lady Millicent looked up in mute dismay. The outbreak was so unexpected, and disrespect to her person and authority an occurrence so entirely new, that for a moment she found no words either sufficiently powerful or cutting for the expression of her indignation. At last she said, drawing herself up haughtily: “You forget yourself strangely. What have I to do with Arthur’s--with your brother’s--eccentricities? Gone, is he? And where, pray? On some self-indulgent freak or other, I suppose, to escape the sight of that poor old man’s miserable face; but what this ‘law-business,’ as you call it, has to do with the matter, is more than I either understand, or wish to have explained.” She rose from the sofa as she spoke, but was arrested by her son’s hand laid lightly on her shoulder.