“And you must do something. I don’t think you can do anything so good as to take my place, and become my father’s right hand until he chooses to retire, and leave you the practice. You will have married by that time, perhaps, and will have sobered down—intellectually. Morally you are one of the steadiest fellows I know.” “I suppose I ought to consider this what the house-agents call an unusual opportunity?” said Harrington; “but you must give me time to think it over.” “Take time,” answered Theodore, briefly. “I’ll talk to my father in the meanwhile.” Mr. Dalbrook received his elder son’s communication as if it had been a blow from an enemy’s hand. “Do you suppose that ass Harrington can ever take your place?” he exclaimed. Whereupon Theodore took pains to explain that his brother was by no means an ass, and that he was only labouring under that burden of small affectations which weighs down a young man who has been allowed to live too much in the society of young women, sisters and sisters’ friends, and to consider all his own utterances oracular. “He is not so fit for the Church as Brown is,” said Theodore, “and he will only addle his brains if he reads any more theology. He won’t be content with Paley and Butler, and the good old books which have been the turnpike road to ordination for a century. He is all for new ideas, and the new ideas are too big for him. But if you will give him his articles, and teach him, as you taught me——” “I don’t think I taught you much. You seemed to get at everything by instinct.” “Ah, you taught me my profession without knowing it; and you will teach Harrington with just as little trouble. He will shake off that husk of affectation in your office—no solicitor can be affected—and he will come out a good lawyer; while I am trying my luck in Temple chambers, reading, and waiting for briefs. With your help, by-and-by, I am bound to do something. I shall get a case or two upon this circuit, anyhow.” “I can’t think what has put this folly in your head, Theo,” said his father, with a vexed air. “It is not folly, father; it is not a caprice,” the young man protested, with sudden earnestness. “For God’s sake don’t think me ungrateful, or that I would willingly turn my back upon my duty to you. Only—young people have troubles of their own, don’t you know?—and of late I have not been altogether happy. I have not prospered in my love-dream; and so I have set up a new idol, that idol so many men worship with more or less reward—Success. I want to spread my wings, and see if they will carry me on a longer flight than I have taken yet.” “Well, it would be selfish of me to baulk you, even if your loss were to cripple me altogether. And it won’t do that. I am strong enough to work on for a few years longer than I intended.” “Oh, my dear father, I hope it won’t come to that. I hope my change of plan won’t shorten your years of leisure.”