“You cannot believe that,” said the gaunt Cerberus.  “You know that it is impossible.”

“You may think so—­perhaps you are right—­but, Grenard, you were never married; never had any experience of the subtlety of woman.  I have my own thoughts on the subject—­I hate women—­I have had cause to hate them—­and I detest that boy for the likeness which he bears to my brother.”

“Tush!” said the living skeleton, with more feeling of humanity than his niggardly patron.  “Whose fault is it that you rob a woman of her love, and then accuse her of inconstancy because your son resembles the man that was the object of her thoughts?  Is that reasonable, or like your good sense?”

How delightful was that first journey to the young pilgrim of hope; and he so lately the child of want and sorrow, whose eyes were ever bent to earth, his cheeks ever wet with tears!—­he now laughed and carolled aloud in the redundant joy of his heart.  “Oh, he was so happy, so happy.”  He had never been a mile from home—­had never ridden on a horse; and now he was told he was to have a horse of his own—­a home of his own—­a dear little cousin to play with, and a nice bed to sleep upon at night, not a bundle of filthy straw.

This was too much for his full heart to bear; it ran over, it was brimful of gladness and expectation, and the excited child sobbed himself to sleep in his good uncle’s arms.

Poor old Shock was trotting beside the horse, and Anthony had been too much engrossed with his own marvellous change of fortune to notice Shock; but Shock did not forget him, and though he could not see—­for the animal was blind—­he often pricked up his ears, and raised his head to the horse and its double burden, to be sure that his young master was there.

It was a spaniel that Algernon had left a pup with Elinor when he went to India.  The sight of the poor blind worn-out creature brought back to his mind so many painful recollections that his own eyes were wet with tears.  The wife who had supplanted Elinor in his affections was dead.  The grass grew rank upon Elinor’s nameless grave; and her poor boy was sleeping within his sheltering arms, as if he had never known so soft a pillow.

Algernon looked down upon his beautiful but squalid face, and pressing his lips upon his pale brow, swore to love and cherish him as his own; and well did that careless but faithful heart keep its solemn covenant.  The very reverse of the miser, Algernon was reckless of the future; he only lived for the present, which, after his disappointment in regard to Elinor, was all, he said, that a man in truth could call his own.  Acting up to this principle, he was as much censured for his extravagance, as his brother was for his parsimony, by those persons who, like Timon’s friends, daily shared his hospitality, and were too often the recipients of his lavish expenditure.  In adopting the little Anthony, he had followed the generous impulse of his heart, without reflecting that the separation of father and son, under their peculiar circumstances, might injure without ultimately benefiting the child.