'Nonsense! Can't get about in this country without a horse. Mind, I didn't mean that you should keep it for yourself. Take a look, if you have not yet, and say which of the two.'
'The quietest!' exclaimed Clement, in a tone nearly of entreaty, diverting to his elder brother, who had had enough pony-back before his eighth year, with a little subsequent refreshment on Mr. Audley's horse, to give him a pitying disdain for anxieties on that score.
'Eh? You are a steady-going parson—don't want a showy beast? That's as young parsons are now-a-days. Well, you shall have the chestnut, very good to ride or drive. Write, I say, as soon as you can fix your day. You might see the Bishop in town. Only don't,' lowering his voice, 'leave me long alone with Jane.'
Just after the hot water had been brought to the brothers' rooms the next morning, there was a simultaneous knocking at the door of communication, and then an equally simultaneous turning of the handles, which was of course ineffectual, till Felix let go, and Clement got it open; and they stood laughing at each other, each holding an envelope, one addressed to F. Underwood, Esquire, the other to the Reverend Edward Underwood, each containing a cheque for £10, and scrawled on the flap of each—'To cover expenses of journey. F.U.'
'Expenses of journey—poor old man!' said Felix. 'It would go some way to a special train!'
'I suppose this is myself,' said Clement.
'Ah, you'll have to resign yourself to be Edward for the rest of your days.'
'Do you mean to take it?'
'Impossible not to let him have the pleasure of it. Poor man, depend upon it he is wishing it had been my father all the time. And it might have been—' Felix's face quivered and contracted. 'No, it won't do to think of that. But, Clem, look here—we won't exactly walk from Paddington; but deducting the one pound five that this really has cost me, you shall take the rest of mine for Blackstone Gulley.'
'It must have cost you more.'