"I grieve to say," replied Mrs. Burns, "that I believe that the youth almost entirely forgot the Benefactor to whom he owed everything. His Friend desired him to come to his house—but that house appeared to be the very last place which the lad cared to enter. Months, perhaps years, would pass without his crossing the threshold. Letters received from his Benefactor were never opened by the youth, he thought it a weariness even to read them."
"What a heartless wretch!" exclaimed Eddy.
"He never did any one thing to please the Friend who had paid his debt at such vast cost, and who had cared for him from childhood. He loved the company of those who were enemies to his Benefactor; he did not, indeed, like them, speak openly against him—"
"I should think not," interrupted the indignant Eddy, "it was hateful enough to forget him."
"Nay, but I have not told you all. You have heard how freely and lovingly the Friend had bestowed many goods on the youth: he had, however, as he had a perfect right to do, reserved a portion for himself. Even this portion he was laying up to increase the future wealth of his adopted son; but, he forbade the youth, in the mean time, to do what he pleased with this portion."
"No one could complain of that," observed Eddy.
"But the youth did complain," said his aunt, "and he did not content himself with murmurs, he resolved to spend all as he pleased. Against right, conscience, and gratitude, he wasted on idle follies what his generous Friend had reserved. Eddy, what say you now to this youth?"
"Say?" repeated her nephew, "I say that he is the most ungrateful, despicable, good for nothing being in the world. Is he living still?"
"Living—yes, and not far hence," replied Mrs. Burns, with a glance of meaning; "is not my photograph like?"
"What on earth do you mean?" exclaimed the astonished Eddy, opening his eyes wide, and fixing them on his aunt.