‘Ben,’ said his mother, solemnly, ‘I hope you have not been led astray into Radical principles since you have been away. How could Laurie be the eldest son? Your poor dear papa did everything for the best. He thought it was good for you to wait, and no doubt it must have been good for you. But to speak as if he did not care for your rights! Why, you were called Benedict because you were the eldest son. I said to Mr. Renton, “I hate the name,--it is the ugliest name I know.” But he always said, “My dear, we can’t help ourselves; the Rentons have been Laurence and Benedict for hundreds of years,--and Laurence and Benedict they must continue to be; but you can call him Ben, you know,--or Dick, for that matter.” I had a good cry over it,’ Mrs. Renton said, dropping back fatigued upon her pillows; ‘for, if there is anything I hate, it is those short names like Ben and Dick; but he had his way. And now to think you should talk as if it had been all in vain!’ ‘Miss Mary,’ said Davison with decision, ‘my missis has talked a deal more than she ought, and I don’t hold with excitement. If you and Mr. Ben was to go out for a walk now,--or something as would take him off his poor dear mamma,’ said the careful nurse, lowering her voice. Ben was too much for his mother. After seven years of soft, feminine glidings about her room, softened voices, perpetual consideration of her ailments, this ‘man in the house,’ thought pleasant at first, was too much for her powers. ‘And I don’t know how we’ll ever do when they’re all here,’ the faithful Davison murmured to herself, as she sprinkled eau-de-Cologne about the pillows, and mixed some port with the arrowroot. And Ben was banished forthwith from the room. ‘He is very nice at dinner, my dear,’ Mrs. Renton herself said, ‘but men never understand. And they should always have something to do, Mary. They are never happy without something to do.’ ‘But poor Ben, this is his first day at home!’ said Mary, when she had read all about the burglary, and calmed the patient down. ‘But, my dear, they are always wretched themselves,’ said Mrs. Renton, ‘when they are quite unoccupied. You must find him something to do.’ Thus it will be seen that Mary’s labours were not much lightened by the arrival of the eldest son. When she went down-stairs after her newspaper-reading, she found him in the library yawning somewhat over a book. ‘Come and talk,’ he said, setting a chair for her; and then laughed a little over his unsuitableness in the hushed and soft-toned house. ‘It is because you have been so long away,’ said Mary. ‘You have gone off on one current, and we on another. I suppose it is always so when people are long parted. Is it not sad?’ ‘I don’t think that it ought to be so,’ said Ben. ‘And Laurie has his current, too,--quite different. I should like to find out about Laurie. It is he I know least about,’ said Mary, with a little sigh. And then Ben smiled. ‘I should like to hear,’ he said, ‘what you know about me?’