gets honours,” and then “if Osborne,” and then a failure altogether.  I said to Aimee, “When my mother sees you,” and now it is “If my father saw her,” with a very faint prospect of its ever coming to pass.’  So he let the evening hours flow on and disappear in reveries like these; winding up with a sudden determination to try the fate of his poems with a publisher, with the direct expectation of getting money for them, and an ulterior fancy that, if successful, they might work wonders with this father.

When Roger came home Osborne did not let a day pass before telling his brother of his plans.  He never did conceal anything long from Roger; the feminine part of his character made him always desirous of a confidant, and as sweet sympathy as he could extract.  But Roger’s opinion had no effect on Osborne’s actions; and Roger knew this full well.  So when Osborne began with—­’I want your advice on a plan I have got in my head,’ Roger replied:  ’Some one told me that the Duke of Wellington’s maxim was never to give advice unless he could enforce its being carried into effect.  Now I can’t do that; and you know, old boy, you don’t follow out my advice when you’ve got it.’

’Not always, I know.  Not when it does not agree with my own opinion.  You are thinking about this concealment of my marriage, but you’re not up in all the circumstances.  You know how fully I meant to have done it, if there had not been that row about my debts; and then my mother’s illness and death.  And now you’ve no conception how my father is changed—­how irritable he has become!  Wait till you’ve been at home a week!  Robinson, Morgan—­it’s the same with them all; but worst of all with me!’

‘Poor fellow!’ said Roger; ’I thought he looked terribly changed; shrunken, and his ruddiness of complexion altered.’

’Why, he hardly takes half the exercise he used to do, so it’s no wonder.  He has turned away all the men off the new works, which used to be such an interest to him; and because the roan cob stumbled with him one day, and nearly threw him, he won’t ride it; and yet he won’t sell it and buy another, which would be the sensible plan; so there are two old horses eating their heads off, while he is constantly talking about money and expense.  And that brings me to what I was going to say.  I’m desperately hard up for money, and so I’ve been collecting my poems—­ weeding them well, you know—­going over them quite critically, in fact; and I want to know if you think Deighton would publish them.  You’ve a name in Cambridge, you know; and I daresay he would look at them if you offered them to him.’

‘I can but try,’ said Roger; ’but I’m afraid you won’t get much by them.’

’I don’t expect much.  I’m a new man, and must make my name.  I should be content with a hundred.  If I’d a hundred pounds I’d set myself to do something.  I might keep myself and Aimee by my writings while I studied for the bar; or, if the worst came to the worst, a hundred pounds would take us to Australia.’