Randolph ought professionally to have improved the occasion; but he only laughed--that insulting laugh which is offensive to everybody, and specially exasperates a child. “How could you kill him? That is easier said than done, my boy.” “I would get a gun, or a sword; but first,” said Nello, calming down, “I would tell him to go away, because I should not _wish_ to kill him. I have seen people fighting with guns and swords--have you?” Here Randolph, being obliged to own himself inferior, fell back upon what was right, as he ought to have done before. “Fighting is very wrong,” he said. “It is dreadful to think of people cutting each other to pieces, like wild beasts; but it is not so bad if you defend yourself with your fists. Only foreigners fight with swords; it is thoroughly un-English. You should never fight; but you would have to defend yourself if you were at school.” Nello looked at his uncle with an agreeable sense of superiority. “But I have seen _real_ fighting,” he said; “not like children. I saw them fighting the Austrians--that was not wrong. Papa said so. It was to get back their houses and their country. I was little then, and I was frightened. But they won!” cried the boy, with a gleam in his dark eyes. What a little savage he was! Randolph was startled by the sudden reference to “papa,” and this made him more warm and eager in his turn. “Whoever has trained you to be a partisan has done very wrong,” he said. “What do you know about it? But look here, my little man. I am going away on Friday, and you are to come with me. It will be a great deal better for you than growing up like a little girl here. You are exactly like a little girl now, with your long hair and your name which is a girl’s name. You would be Jack if you were at school. I want to make a man of you. You will never be anything but a little lady if you don’t go to school. Come; you have only to put on a frock like your sister. Nelly! Why, that’s a girl’s name! You should be Jack if you were at school.” “I am not a girl!” cried Nello. His face grew crimson, and he darted his little brown fist--not so feebly as his size promised--in his uncle’s face. Randolph took a step backwards in his surprise. “I hate you!” cried the child. “You shall never, never come here when I am a man. When the old gentleman is dead, and papa is dead, and everything is mine, I will shut up all the doors, I will turn out the dogs, and you shall never come here. I know now it is true what Lily says--you are the bad uncle that killed the babes in the wood. But when I am a big man and grown up, you shall never come here!” “So!” said Randolph, furious but politic; “it is all to be yours? I did not know that. The castle, and the woods, and everything? How do you know it will be yours?”