'It is his name you have to keep unstained in the new country,' added Felix, the fresh thought rising to his lips; but it was met by a gush of feeling that quite astonished him.
'Ay, and yours, Felix! I do—I do want to be a help, and not a drag to you. I really don't think so much of any of them—not even Lance—as of you. I hope I shouldn't have been better to my father than I have been to you; and when—when I'm out there, I do hope to show—that I do care.'
The boy was fighting with very hard sobs, and for all the frightful faces he made the tears were running down his cheeks. Felix's eyes were overflowing too, but with much of sudden comfort and thankfulness.
'I always knew you were a good fellow, Ful,' he said, with his hand on his brother's knee; 'and I think you'll keep so, with Mr. Audley to keep you up to things, and show you how to be helped.'
All after this was bustle and hurry. Fulbert had to be sent alone to take leave of Alda, while his brother and Mr. Audley transacted their business. Edgar came back with him; and after some hurried rushings out in search of necessaries forgotten, the last farewells were spoken, and Fulbert, with the two Audley brothers, was out of sight; while Felix, after drawing a long, deep sigh, looked at his watch, and spoke of going to see Alda.
'Don't run your head into a hornet's nest,' said Edgar; 'it's all up with me there. Come this way, and I'll tell you all about it.'
'All up with you!'
'There are limits to human endurance, and Tom and I have over-passed each other's. I don't blame him, poor man; he wanted raw material to serve as an importer of hides and tallow, but you, the genuine article, were bespoken, and my father was not in a state for the pleading of personal predilections.'
'What is it now?'
'Only a set of etchings from Atalanta in Caledon. That was the straw that broke the camel's back,' said Edgar, so coolly as to make Felix exclaim—