“I wonder my father is so obstinate about this,” he said. “He knows my feeling on the subject. It is the most terrible ordeal a man can be subjected to. I wish you had let me know, all of you, before making up your minds to this very foolish proceeding. Parliament!--what should you want with Parliament at your age?” “Not much,” said Val, somewhat uneasy to hear his grandfather attacked by his father, and a little dubious whether it became him to take the old man’s side so warmly as he wished; “but I hope I shall do my duty as well as another,” he said, with a little modest pride, “though I have still everything to learn.” “Do your duty! stuff and nonsense,” said Richard; “what does a boy of your age know about duty? Please your grandfather you mean.” Val felt the warm blood mounting to his face, and bit his lip to keep himself down. “And if it was so, sir,” he said, his eyes blazing in spite of himself, “there might be worse things to do.” Richard stopped short suddenly and looked at him--not at his face, but into his eyes, which is of all things in the world the most trying to a person of hot temper. “Ha!” he said, with a soft smile, raising his eyebrows a little in gentle surprise, “you have a temper, I see! how is it I never found that out before?” Val dug his heels into the rich old Turkey carpet; he pressed his nails into his flesh, wounding himself to keep himself still. One glance he gave at the perfect calm of his father’s face, then cast down his eyes that he might not see it. Richard looked at him with amused calculation, as if measuring his forces, then waited, evidently expecting an outburst. When none came, he said with that precise and nicely-modulated voice, every tone of which ministers occasions of madness to the impatient mind-- “Of course, with that face you must have a temper; I should have seen it at the first glance. But you have learnt to restrain it, I perceive. I congratulate you--it augurs well for your success in life.” Then he fell back quite naturally into the previous subject, changing his tone in a moment to one of polite and perfect ease. “I am sorry, as I said before, that my father is so obstinate. Why doesn’t he put in some squire or other whom he might influence as much as he pleases? But you; I tell you there isn’t such an ordeal in existence. Everything a man has ever done is raked up.” “They may rake up as much as they please,” said Val, with a violent effort, determined not to be outdone by his father in power of self-control. His voice, however, was unsteady, and so was the laugh which he forced. “They may rake up what they please; I don’t think they can make much of that, so far as I am concerned.”