"It is a disguised hand, you see," he answered. "No doubt about that: and accomplished in the cleverest manner."
"Is it true that poor Edmund had been drawing bills in conjunction with Alexander?"
"Only one. He had drawn a good many I'm afraid during his short lifetime in conjunction with other people, but only one with Alexander--which they got renewed. No blame attaches to Alexander; not a scrap of it."
"Oliver told me that."
"Ay. I have a notion that poor Edmund did not get into this trouble for his own sake, but to help that young scamp, his brother."
"Which brother?"
"Which brother!" echoed Mr. North, rather in mockery. "As if you need ask that. There's only one of them who could deserve the epithet, and that's Sidney. An awful scamp. He is but twenty years of age, and he is as deep in the ways of a bad world as though he were forty."
"I am very sorry to hear you say it. Whispers go abroad about him, as I dare say you know, but I would rather not have heard them confirmed by you."
"People can't say much too bad of him. We have Mrs. North to thank for it: it is all owing to the way she has brought him up. When I would have corrected his faults, she stepped in between us. Oftentimes have I thought of the enemy that sowed the tares amidst the wheat in his neighbour's field."
"The old saying comes home to many of us," observed Mrs. Cumberland with a suppressed sigh, as she rose to leave. "When our children are young they tread upon our toes, but when they grow older they tread upon our hearts."