"It is a glorious old place."
"Wish it were yours—don't you? Confess the truth, now."
"Some fifty years hence," said I, laughing.
"You would then be too old to enjoy it, Geoffrey; but wait patiently God's good time, and it may be yours yet. There was a period in my life," and he sighed a long, deep, regretful sigh, "when I hoped that a son of mine would be master here, but as that cannot be, I am doomed to leave no male heir to my name and title, I know no one whom I would rather see in the old place than my cousin Edward's son."
"Your attachment to my father must have been great, when, after so many years, you extend it to his son."
"Yes, Geoffrey, I loved that wild, mad-cap father of yours better than I ever loved any man; but I suffered one rash action to separate hearts formed by nature to understand and appreciate each other. You are not acquainted with this portion of the family history. Pass the bottle this way, and I will enlighten your ignorance."
"When your grandfather, in the plenitude of his worldly wisdom (for he had a deal of the fox in his character), left the guardianship of his sons to his aged father, it was out of no respect for the old gentleman, whom had cast him off rather unceremoniously, when his plebeian tastes led him to prefer being a rich citizen, rather than a poor gentleman; but he found, that though he amassed riches, he had lost caste, and he hoped by this act to restore his sons, for whom he had acquired wealth, to their proper position in society.
"My grandfather, Sir Robert, grumbled a good deal at being troubled with the guardianship of the lads in his old age. But when he saw those youthful scions of his old house, he was so struck with their beauty and talents, that from that hour they held an equal place in his affections with myself, the only child of his eldest son, and heir to his estates.
"I was an extravagant, reckless young fellow of eighteen, when my cousins first came to live at Moncton; and I hailed their advent with delight. Edward, I told you before, had been an old chum of mine at school; and when Robert was placed in a lawyer's office, he accompanied me to college to finish my education. He was intended to fill his father's place in the mercantile world, but he had little talent or inclination for such a life. All his tastes were decidedly aristocratic, and I fear that my expensive and dissipated habits operated unfavourably on his open, generous, social disposition.
"With a thousand good qualities, and possessing excellent qualities, Edward Moncton was easily led astray by the bad example of others. He was a fine musician, had an admirable voice, a brilliant wit, and great fluency of speech, which can scarcely be called advantageous gifts, to those who don't know how to make a proper use of them. He was the life of the society in which we moved, courted and admired wherever he went, and a jolly time we had of it, I can tell you, in those classical abodes of learning, and frequently of sin.