“The Bible and Pilgrim’s Progress,” answered the boy.
Mr. Hope turned down the corners of his mouth with a contemptuous expression, little dreaming that all the treasures of learning and wit which the most talented mind ever grasped are useless—worthless, compared with the wisdom to be gathered from one sacred volume.
“A puritanical library, more select than comprehensive,” said the gentleman; “you must apply yourself to something else in future. You have a pretty long course of education before you ere you can be fit for the station which you hold—Latin, Greek, French, German, mathematics, algebra, natural philosophy, and a thousand other things, indispensable for a nobleman—all to be mastered in the next few years.”
Ernest felt himself at the foot of a new mountain of difficulty, with a humiliating sense of ignorance.
“But you wished to say something to me,” resumed Mr. Hope, leaning back in his chair, and laying down the paper with a formidable air of attention.
“Now for it!” thought Ernest, struggling against his shyness and his extreme disinclination to speak to his uncle. “Sir,” said he aloud, “I am very anxious to do something for my bro—— the sons of Lawless, I mean, with whom I passed the days of my childhood.”
“If I might advise, you would never allude to those days.”
Ernest coloured, yet encouraged himself by remembering that there is nothing but guilt which need cause us shame, and that we should blush for no situation in which Heaven has placed us. “I would wish, if you consent, to bring the boys here,” resumed he, “and place them under care of the gardener.”
“An extraordinary wish,” replied Mr. Hope, taking snuff. “Is it possible that this is really your desire?”