But when morning came, Sprong resumed her ascendency, and by raking up and blowing the cooled embers of her patroness’ wrath, succeeded once more in fanning them to the old red heat, after which she poured vinegar upon them, and they exploded in the pungent fumes of the note which told our hero that he was not to hope, for the future, to be one day owner of a handsome fortune.
Of course, at first he was a little downcast; and in talking to Lillyston, compared himself to Gautier sans avoir, and “Wilfred the disinherited.”
“Never mind, Julian; it matters very little to you,” said Lillyston proudly.
“Anyhow I must have no more fits of idleness,” answered Julian.
And indeed the only pain it caused him arose from the now necessary decision that he must go to Saint Werner’s College as a sizar, or not at all. But for all that he went home with a light heart, and had once more gained the proud distinction of head-remove—one for which, at that time, I very much doubt whether he would have exchanged the prospect of a rich inheritance.
And the misfortune proved an advantage to Cyril too, as we shall see.
“So here’s the little rogue who has lost me a thousand a year,” said Julian laughingly, when he got home, and took Cyril on his knee by the fireside after dinner. The next moment he was very sorry he had said it, for Cyril hung his head, and seemed quite disconcerted; but his brother laughed away his sorrow, as he thought, and no further allusion to the subject was made.
But that night, as Julian looked into his brother’s bedroom before he went to bed, he found Cyril crying, and his pillow wet with tears.
“Cyril, what’s the matter, my boy?—you’re not ill, are you?”
Cyril sat up, his eyes still swimming, and threw his arms round his brother’s neck. “I’ve ruined you, Julian,” he said.