This arrangement was not agreeable to Cornelius, who could not see, he said, what advantage in that case he had from being the eldest of the family. He broke out in a tone of expostulation, ready to swell into indignant complaint. "Now, mother," he said "do you think it fair that I should have to look after the whole family as if they were my own?" This was by no means his real cause of complaint, but he chose to use it as his grievance for the present. "You will have the other trustees to advise with," said his mother. "It need not weigh on you very heavily." "Well, of course, I could do better with it than anybody out of the family." "If you have your father's love of fair play, Cornelius, you will. What you can do to that end now is to make yourself thoroughly acquainted with business." "A bank's not the place to get the knowledge of business necessary for that sort of thing." "Your father has reasons for preferring a general to any special knowledge. The fitness resulting will depend upon yourself. And when you marry you will, as you know, be rid of the responsibility. So far your father and you are of one mind; he does not think it fair that a married man should be burdened with any family but his own." "What if I should marry before my father's death?" "I hope, indeed, you will, Cornelius. The arrangements your father has made is one of provision against the unlikely. When you are married, I don't doubt he will make another, to meet the new circumstances." "Now," said Cornelius to himself, "I do believe if I was to marry money--as why shouldn't I?--my father would divide my share amongst the rest, and not give me a farthing!" Full of the injury of the idea, he rose and left the room. His mother, poor woman, wept as he vanished. She dared not allow herself to ask why she wept--dared not allow to herself that her first-born was not a lovely thought to her--dared not ask where he could have got such a mean nature--so mean that he did not know he was mean. Although the ill-humor in which he had been ever since he came was by himself attributed to the weather, and had been expended on the cooking, on the couches, on the beds, and twenty different things that displeased him, he had nevertheless brought it with him; and her experience gave her the sad doubt that the cause of it might lie in his own conduct--for the consciousness may be rendered uneasy without much rousing of the conscience proper.