"Seventeen."
"You'll be eighteen when you enter college? That's too young."
"I'm older than my years," Lansing gave a boastful laugh, then did a bungling thing. "Won't you smoke, Uncle Levi?" and he passed a handsome silver case forward; "it's a great tie between—well, chums!"
"I've lived over sixty years without the need of that tie," Markham returned stiffly; "I do not think I'll take it up now. I'm not much of a preacher, but at your age, Lansing, I'd advise the collection of good tastes and habits; let the doubtful luxuries await the years of discretion."
Lansing pocketed his silver case and gave an embarrassed laugh. Levi went back to his former line of argument.
"It's Cornell and the beggarly allowance," thought Lansing, but it was no such thing.
"You are too young to go to college, Lans; too immature to really put yourself to any final test. Your assumption of dignity proves this more than anything else. Of course I do not know how much or how little you know of the past, but it is necessary, from now on, that you and I should understand each other perfectly. I was very"—Levi struggled for composure—"very fond of your mother."
"Yes, uncle."
"And I did not want her to marry your father. I feared he would not make her happy—he did not!"
The crisp facts came out with force but with no malignity, and Lansing Hertford dropped his eyes as he replied: