Mrs. Tracy, the mother of this various progeny, had been somewhat of a beauty in her day, albeit much too large and masculine for the taste of ordinary mortals; and though now very considerably past forty, the vain vast female was still ambitious of compliment, and greedy of admiration.  That Julian should be such a woman’s favourite will surprise none:  she had, she could have, no sympathies with mild and thoughtful Charles; but rather dreaded to set her flaunting folly in the light of his wise glance, and sought to hide her humbled vanity from his pure and keen perceptions.  His very presence was a tacit rebuke to her social dissipation, and she could not endure the mild radiance of his virtues.  He never fawned and flattered her, as Julian would; but had even suffered filial presumption (it could not be affection—­O dear, no!) to go so far as gently to expostulate at what he fancied wrong; he never gave her reason to contrast, with happy self-complacence, her own soul’s state with Charles’s, however she could with Julian’s:  and then, too, she would indulgently allow her foolish mind—­a woman’s, though a parent’s—­to admire that tall, black, bandit-looking son, above the slight build, the delicate features, and almost feminine elegance of his brother:  she found Julian always ready to countenance and pamper her gayest wishes, and was glad to make him her escort every where—­at balls, and fetes, and races, and archery parties; while as to Charles, he would be the stay-at-home, the milk-sop, the learned pundit, the pious prayer-monger, any thing but the ladies’ man.  Yes:  it is little wonder that Mrs. Tracy’s heart clave to Julian, the masculine image of herself; while it barely tolerated Charles, who was a rarefied and idealized likeness of the absent and forgotten Tracy.

But the mother—­and there are many silly mothers, almost as many as silly men and silly maids—­in her admiration of the outward form of manliness, overlooked the true strength, and chivalry, and nobleness of mind which shone supreme in Charles.  How would Julian have acted in such a case as this?—­a sheep had wandered down the cliff’s face to a narrow ledge of rock, whence it could not come back again, for there was no room to turn:  Julian would have pelted it, and set his bull-dog at it, and rejoiced to have seen the poor animal’s frantic leaps from shingly shelf to shelf, till it would be dashed to pieces.  But how did Charles act?  With the utmost courage, and caution, and presence of mind, he crept down, and, at the risk of his life, dragged the bleating, unreluctant creature up again; it really seemed as if the ungrateful poor dumb brute recognised its humane friend, and suffered him to rescue it without a struggle or a motion that might have endangered both.