LIONEL.--"I did not mean my mother; of course, I could not be too proud to take benefits from her. But the truth is simply this--, my father had a relation, not very near, indeed,--a cousin, at about as distant a remove, I fancy, as a cousin well can be. To this gentleman my mother wrote when my poor father died; and he was generous, for it is he who paid for my schooling. I did not know this till very lately. I had a vague impression, indeed, that I had a powerful and wealthy kinsman who took an interest in me, but whom I had never seen." VANCE.--"Never seen?" LIONEL.--"No. And here comes the sting. On leaving school last Christmas, my mother, for the first time, told me the extent of my obligations to this benefactor, and informed me that he wished to know my own choice as to a profession,--that if I preferred Church or Bar, he would maintain me at college." VANCE.--"Body o' me! where's the sting in that? Help yourself to toddy, my boy, and take more genial views of life." LIONEL.--"You have not heard me out. I then asked to see my benefactor's letters; and my mother, unconscious of the pain she was about to inflict, showed me not only the last one, but all she had received from him. Oh, Vance, they were terrible, those letters! The first began by a dry acquiescence in the claims of kindred, a curt proposal to pay my schooling; but not one word of kindness, and a stern proviso that the writer was never to see nor hear from me. He wanted no gratitude; he disbelieved in all professions of it. His favours would cease if I molested him. 'Molested' was the word; it was bread thrown to a dog." VANCE.--"Tut! Only a rich man's eccentricity. A bachelor, I presume?" LIONEL.--"My mother says he has been married, and is a widower." VANCE.--"Any children?" LIONEL.--"My mother says none living; but I know little or nothing about his family." Vance looked with keen scrutiny into the face of his boyfriend, and, after a pause, said, drily,--"Plain as a pikestaff. Your relation is one of those men who, having no children, suspect and dread the attention of an heir presumptive; and what has made this sting, as you call it, keener to you is--pardon me--is in some silly words of your mother, who, in showing you the letters, has hinted to you that that heir you might be, if you were sufficiently pliant and subservient. Am I not right?" Lionel hung his head, without reply. VANCE (cheeringly).--"So, so; no great harm as yet. Enough of the first letter. What was the last?"