“Hope, what do mean by that? This is some jest of yours! You don’t want us to think that you are not going to play with us again?”
“I wish you to think the truth.”
“Who on earth has put this absurdity into your head?”
Charles would have liked far better if he could have said that no one had put a fear of gambling into his head, but that it was the result of his own reflections on the subject; for one of the causes of our so seldom benefiting by the experience of others, is the pride of the human heart, which hates the idea of being led. But, in the present case, no other truthful answer could be given, and Charles replied, “My brother has made me think differently upon this subject from what I did before.”
“Your brother—Fontonore! Well, this is the best joke that ever I heard in my life! You, who have lived from your birth with those who know what life is, to allow yourself to be led by a boy who passed all his early years with tinkers, or ploughmen, or thieves; who is ignorant of all that a gentleman should know, and prudently avoids opening his lips for fear of speaking bad grammar!”
Charles felt more inclined to be angry than to laugh. The arrow fell lightly as regarded his brother’s conversation; for whether it was from natural delicacy of mind, or Ernest’s more than common acquaintance with the pure language of Scripture, his speech was never coarse, and occasionally, when he overcame his reserve, flowed on in unstudied eloquence, unusual in one so young. Charles was indignant at the unfeeling allusion to the trials of Ernest’s early life. “You forget that you speak of my brother,” said he.
“He has given you good cause to remember that he is your brother, and your elder brother too,” said Fitzwigram, with a sneer. “But I should have thought it enough for him to have had my name, my fortune, and my estate, without letting him put my judgment also in his pocket, and not leave me even a will of my own!”
