In a few minutes Horace joined him. Horace did not care to form the third of a party which included his uncle and his sister. Their friendship annoyed him, he could not tell how; it was an offence to Horace that they seemed to understand one another so entirely; far superior as he thought himself, he was conscious that neither the one nor the other was intelligible to him. He came, however, with a little excitement on hearing that the Colonel had been with his father, expecting little, yet curious, as he always was about everything, done and said, by his perennial and lifelong antagonist. When he entered the room Colonel Sutherland held out his hand to him with an affectionate sympathy, which he accepted with astonishment, and not without a passing sneer in his mind at the idea of being consoled, either for such a supposititious disappointment, or in such a manner. It was with a feeling very different from a young man's anxiety to know his fate, or expectation of a decision which should influence his life, that he waited to hear what his uncle had to say. "I am sorry to tell you, Horace, you have judged more correctly than I did," said the Colonel, with hesitation; "I find, to my great disappointment, that your father is not disposed to assist you, my dear boy. I don't know what to say about it--it appears that he has taken some erroneous idea into his mind about myself. I'm afraid the advocate hurt the cause, Horace. If some one else spoke to him, perhaps--; but however that might be, to my great concern and astonishment, he has quite refused me!" "Don't trouble yourself about it, uncle; I knew how it would be," said Horace, his eyes lighting up with the unnatural contention which had pervaded his life. "It was not the advocate, but the cause which was hopeless. What did he say?" "He said--some things which had much better remained unsaid. He was affronted with me," said Colonel Sutherland; "but he gives his _permission_, Horace--not assistance, remember, but still permission--that is always something; he seems to have no _objection_ that you should follow your own course, and do what you can for yourself." "That is very kind of him," said Horace, with a smile; "but I rather think I never should have asked his leave, but for your hopes of help from him, which I never shared. I suppose he was amazed at the idea that I should expect anything from him. I daresay he appealed to you why he should take his own narrow means to support an idle vagabond like me. Ah! he did!--I could have sworn he would!"