“The better able will he be to brave fatigue and hardship,” said he, sternly. “Come forward, sir, and tell me something about yourself. What have they taught you at school?—has Raper made you a bookworm, dreamy and good-for-nothing as himself?”
“Would that he had made me resemble him in anything!” cried I, passionately.
“It were a pity such a moderate ambition should go unrewarded,” replied he, with a sneer. “But to the purpose: what do you know?”
“Little, sir; very little.”
“And what can you do?”
“Even less.”
“Hopeful, at all events,” rejoined he, with a shrug of the shoulders. “They haven't made you a scholar: they surely might have trained you to something.”
My mother, who seemed to suffer most acutely during this short dialogue, here whispered something in his ear, to which he as hastily replied,—
“Not a bit of it. I know him better than that; better than you do. Come, sir,” added he, turning to me, “the Countess tells me that you are naturally sensitive, quick to feel censure, and prone to brood over it. Is this the case?”
“I scarcely know if it be,” said I. “I have but a slight experience of it.”