'Authority! Bless you! William will be glad to see his boy; we don't go by authority between brothers.'
'Because,' continued Mr. Audley, 'I heard from your brother that he wished Fernando to remain with me to receive an English education.'
'All sentiment and stuff! He knew better before we had sailed! An English squire in this wretched old country, forsooth! when the new republic is before him! No, no, Mr. Audley, I'll be open with you. I saw what you were up to when I got your letter, and Fernan—Got his lesson very well, he had. And when I came down, a friend in London gave me another hint. It won't do, I can assure you. That style of thing is all very well for you spruce parsons of good family, as you call it in the old country; but we are not going to have a rising young fellow like this, with a prospect of what would buy out all your squires and baronets in the old country, beslobbered and befooled with a lot of Puseyite cant. You've had your turn of him; it is time he should come and be a man again.'
Mr. Audley was dizzy with consternation. Fernando was no child. He was full sixteen, and he was so far recovered that his health formed no reason for detaining him. If he chose to go with his uncle, he must. If not—what then? He looked at Fernando, who sat uneasily.
'You hear what your uncle says?' he asked.
'I told him,' said Fernando, 'I must wait for a fortnight.' He spoke with eyes cast down, but not irresolutely.
His uncle broke out—He knew what that meant; it was only that he might be flattered by the Bishop and all the ladies, and made a greater fool of than ever. No, no, he must be out again by May, and he should just have time to take Fernan to one of the gay boarding-houses at Saratoga, and leave him there to enjoy himself.
'I have letters from my father,' said Fernando, looking up to Mr. Audley, 'before he went to Oregon. He said nothing.'
'Do you wish to stay?' said Mr. Audley, feeling that all depended on that, and trying to hide the whirl of anxiety and disappointment he felt.
The answer was not what he expected. Fernando sat upright in his chair, looked up to him and then at his uncle, and said low but resolutely, 'I will stay.'