“You must take to it for the present, at any rate. And then there is another thing to think of. Ernest is to go to the bar, and unless you become a lawyer, if anything happened to Reginald, there will be nobody to give him a start, and I’m told that is everything at the bar.” This last Jeremy admitted to be a weighty argument. “It is a precious rum sort of lawyer I shall make,” he said, sadly, “about as good as grandfather yonder, I’m thinking. By the way, how has he been getting on?” “O, just as usual—write, write, write all day. He thinks that he is working out his time. He has got a new stick now, on which he has nicked all the months and years that have to run before he has done—little nicks for the months and big ones for the years. There are eight or ten big ones left now. Every month he cuts out a nick. It is very dreadful. You know he thinks that Reginald is the devil, and he hates him, too. The other day, when he had no writing to do in the office, I found him drawing pictures of him with horns and a tail, such awful pictures, and I think Reginald always looks like that to him. And then sometimes he wants to go out riding, especially at night. Only last week they found him putting a bridle on to the gray mare—the one that Reginald sometimes rides, you know. When did you say that Ernest was coming back?” she said, after a pause. “Why, Doll, I told you—next Monday week.” Her face fell a little. “O, I thought you said Saturday.” “Why do you want to know?” “O, only about getting his room ready.” “Why, it is ready; I looked in yesterday.” “Nonsense! you know nothing about it,” she answered, colouring. “Come, I wish you would go out; I want to count the linen, and you are in the way.”