Communications with Brackenhill were few and far between.  From the local papers Alfred heard of the rejoicings when James came of age, quickly followed by the announcement that he had gone abroad for the winter.  Then he was at home again, and going to marry Miss Harriet Benham; whereat Alfred smiled a little.  “The governor must have put his pride in his pocket:  old Benham made his money out of composite candles, then retired, and has gas all over the house for fear they should be mentioned.  Harry, as we used to call her, is the youngest of them—­she must be eight or nine and twenty; fine girl, hunts—­tried it on with poor Maurice ages ago.  I should think she was about half as big again as Jim.  Well, yes, perhaps I am exaggerating a little.  How charmed my father must be!—­only, of course, anything to please Jim, and it’s a fine thing to have him married and settled.”

Alfred read his father’s feelings correctly enough, but Mr. Thorne was almost repaid for all he had endured when, in his turn, he was able to write and announce the birth of a boy for whom the bells had been set ringing as the heir of Brackenhill.  Jim, with his sick fancies and querulous conceit, Mrs. James Thorne, with her coarsely-colored splendor and imperious ways, faded into the background now that Horace’s little star had risen.

The rest may be briefly told.  Horace had a little sister who died, and he himself could hardly remember his father.  His time was divided between his mother’s house at Brighton and Brackenhill.  He grew slim and tall and handsome—­a Thorne, and not a Benham, as his grandfather did not fail to note.  He was delicate.  “But he will outgrow that,” said Mrs. Middleton, and loved him the better for the care she had to take of him.  It was principally for his sake that she was there.  She was a widow and had no children of her own, but when, at her brother’s request, she came to Brackenhill to make more of a home for the school-boy, she brought with her a tiny girl, little Sissy Langton, a great-niece of her husband’s.

Meanwhile, the other boy grew up in his quiet home, but death came there as well as to Brackenhill, and seemed to take the mainspring of the household in taking Sarah Thorne.  Her father pined for her, and had no pleasure in life except in her child.  Even when the old man was growing feeble, and it was manifest to all but the boy that he would not long be parted from his daughter, it was a sombre but not an unhappy home for the child.  Something in the shadow which overhung it, in his grandfather’s weakness and his father’s silence, made him grave and reserved, but he always felt that he was loved.  No playful home-name was ever bestowed on the little lad, but it did not matter, for when spoken by Alfred Thorne no name could be so tender as Percival.