"I think they must be cut out and put together before they are made!" said Mark, very slowly and thoughtfully.
The supposition was greeted with a great burst of laughter from Cornelius. In the midst of a refined family he was the one vulgar, and behaved as the blind and stupid generally behave to those who see what they cannot see. Mockery is the share they choose in the motions of the life eternal!
"Stop, stop, Cornelius!" said his father. "I suspect we have a young philosopher where you see only a silly little brother. He has, I fancy, got a glimpse of something he does not yet know how to say."
"In that case, don't you think, sir," said Cornelius, "he had better hold his tongue till he does know how to say it?"
It was not often he dared speak so to his father, but he was growing less afraid of him, though not through increase of love.
His father looked at him a moment ere he replied, and his mother looked anxiously at her husband.
"It would be better," he answered quietly, "were he not among friends."
The emphasis with which he spoke was lost on Cornelius.
"They take everything for clever the little idiot says!" he remarked to himself. "Nobody made anything of me when I was his age!"
The letters were brought in. Amongst them was one for Mr. Raymount with a broad black border. He looked at the postmark.