"Here it is; read for yourself." And he put the letter into Algernon's hand.
"Well, Tony, lad, this is indeed better than I expected," he said, grasping his nephew warmly by the hand. "But stay; what does this paragraph mean? Have you found my love, Anthony, such a galling yoke?"
"My father has misunderstood me," replied the lad, his cheeks glowing with crimson. "I told him that it was not just for me to be dependent on your bounty."
"'Tis a crabbed old sinner," said the Colonel, laughing, "I am more astonished at his letter than anything that has happened to me since he robbed me of your mother."
Anthony looked inquiringly at his uncle.
"Come, nephew, sit down by me, and I will relate to you a page out of my own history, which will not only show you what manner of man this father of yours is, but explain to you the position in which we are both placed regarding him; clearing up what must have appeared to you very mysterious."
With intense interest the amiable son of this most execrable father listened to the tale already told of his mother's wrongs. How often did the crimes of the parent dye the cheeks of the child with honest indignation, or pale them with fear? How did his love for his generous uncle increase in a tenfold degree, when he revealed the treachery that had been practised against him! How often did he ask himself—"Is it possible that he can love the son of this cruel brother?" But then he was also the son of the woman he had loved so tenderly for years, whose memory he held in the deepest veneration; was like him in person, and, with sounder judgment and better abilities, resembled him in mind also.
Satisfied that his father would do him justice in spite of his cold, unfeeling neglect, and bequeath to him the wealth to obtain which he had sacrificed every human feeling and domestic comfort, Anthony no longer suffered the humiliating sense of obligation to weigh upon his heart and depress his spirits, and he cheerfully accepted his uncle's offer to send him to college to study for the Church.
"Five livings," Godfrey declared, were four too many for any incumbent, and he would charitably relieve Anthony from some of them, and study for the same profession. His cousin was grieved at this choice, so unfitted to the tastes and pursuits of his gay companion; but finding all remonstrance vain, he ceased to importune him on the subject, hoping that as time advanced, he would, of his own accord, abandon the idea.
To college, therefore, the lads went; and here the same dissimilarity marked their conduct as at school. Anthony applied intensely to his studies, and made rapid progress in mental and moral improvement. Serious without affectation, and pious without cant, he daily became more attached to the profession he had chosen, hoping to find through it a medium by which he could one day restore to the world the talents which for half a century his father had buried in the dust. Godfrey's career, on the other hand, was one of folly, dissipation and crime. He wasted his father's property in the most lavish expenditure, and lost at the gaming table sums that would have settled him well in life.