"We instituted a club lately," continued Sir Arthur, "in which no member was eligible who had not been deprived of one limb at least in the service of his country. With many of my friends all is lost but honor! That is what a man should die rather than lose! It was long a hereditary heir-loom in our family, Patrick! entailed upon you, Sir! handed down untarnished from father to son, generation after generation! And where is it now? Lost in the kennel, the race-course, the stable, the gambling house, and every receptacle of infamy and shame, while I live to see the Dunbars of Dornington utterly ruined, as well as utterly disgraced!"
"Not as long as you live!" exclaimed Sir Patrick, advancing with sudden emotion, and grasping his uncle's hand. "Your name, Sir Arthur, will shed a lustre over our house after mine has been blotted out for ever from the memory of man!"
"Why should it be so?" asked Sir Arthur, speaking in a tone of deep vehemence and solemnity, while his noble and serious countenance assumed an expression of that affection which nothing could extinguish. "Patrick! it is long lane that has no turning! Be like your father in mind, as you are in person, and let me leave you my best blessing at last!"
"Too late! too late!" replied Sir Patrick, walking hurriedly up and down the room, and then suddenly resuming his usual tone of reckless gayety. "No! no! as Joseph Surface remarked, 'too good a character is inconvenient!' You are unadultered gold, Sir Arthur, but I must only set up for being a genuine Bristol farthing."
"Yet, Patrick! even if honor were like truth, at the bottom of a well, it is worth diving for; and the best throw on the dice is to throw them away."
"Your whole nature and mine are different, Sir Arthur! A wasp may work his heart out, but he never can make honey," replied the young Baronet, hurriedly. "I have neither wishes, plans, nor hopes for myself! Already I am older in heart than you, and neither know nor care how short a time I have to exist! N'importe! It would not certainly be convenient for me at present to fly off like a kite, with both my sisters at my tail, therefore we are all most grateful for your kind invitation to them, and shall accept the honor you offer with pleasure."
"Be it so then," replied Sir Arthur, in a calm, dignified, but mournful voice. "If my nieces will be content with little, they may be as happy as if we had much. I am most anxious to invent anything which might add to their enjoyment, and Lady Towercliffe tells me, Agnes, that your whole heart is bent on spending a month at Harrowgate! If that would really be any pleasure or advantage to you, tell me so, and I shall endeavor if possible to go there myself, though now, in my old age, very like Punch, who could act only in his own box."
"Oh! not for worlds would we ask you to go, dear uncle," exclaimed Marion, venturing in her eagerness to speak before Agnes, and shocked at the idea of a journey, the fatigue and expense of which she knew the Admiral was so little able to incur. "We shall be more than happy at home! do not think of such a thing!"
"But if I may be permitted to have an opinion, being the person consulted, Marion, let me say that nothing on earth was ever more enchanting than this delicious proposal. You have made me the happiest person alive, Sir Arthur!" exclaimed Agnes, for once condescending to look perfectly pleased. "I must endeavor not to go mad with joy! You are our very best friend! My dear uncle, all I can say is, YOU ARE A GENTLEMAN!"
"Well, Agnes! That being the case," replied Sir Arthur, smiling, "how soon can you be ready to start?"