ng to be at home, the squire in his own hand, and from his own
head, indited and composed an epistle which might have satisfied all the
wounds which the dignity of the Leslies had ever received.

This letter of apology ended with a hearty request that Randal would
come and spend a few days with his son. Frank's epistle was to the same
purport, only more Etonian and less legible.

It was some days before Randal's replies to these epistles were
received. The replies bore the address of a village near London; and
stated that the writer was now reading with a tutor preparatory to
entrance to Oxford, and could not, therefore, accept the invitation
extended to him.

For the rest, Randal expressed himself with good sense, though not with
much generosity. He excused his participation in the vulgarity of such a
conflict by a bitter, but short allusion to the obstinacy and ignorance
of the village boor; and did not do what you, my kind reader, certainly
would have done under similar circumstances,--namely, intercede in
behalf of a brave and unfortunate antagonist. Most of us like a foe
better after we have fought him,--that is, if we are the conquering
party; this was not the case with Randal Leslie. There, so far as the
Etonian was concerned, the matter rested. And the squire, irritated that
he could not repair whatever wrong that young gentleman had sustained,
no longer felt a pang of regret as he passed by Mrs. Fairfield's
deserted cottage.

CHAPTER XVI.

Lenny Fairfield continued to give great satisfaction to his new
employers, and to profit in many respects by the familiar kindness with
which he was treated. Riccabocca, who valued himself on penetrating into
character, had from the first seen that much stuff of no common quality
and texture was to be found in the disposition and mind of the English
village boy. On further acquaintance, he perceived that, under a child's
innocent simplicity, there were the workings of an acuteness that
required but development and direction. He ascertained that the
pattern-boy's progress at the village school proceeded from something
more than mechanical docility and readiness of comprehension. Lenny had
a keen thirst for knowledge, and through all the disadvantages of birth
and circumstance, there were the indications of that natural genius
which converts disadvantages themselves into stimulants. Still, with
the germs of good qualities lay the embryos of those which, difficult to