id softly into
the bed, and they were locked together.

CHAPTER VI

Boyne's bank was of the order of those old and firmly fixed
establishments which have taken root with the fortunes of the
country--are honourable as England's name, solid as her prosperity, and
even as the flourishing green tree to shareholders: a granite house.
Boyne himself had been disembodied for more than a century: Burt and
Hamble were still of the flesh; but a greater than Burt or Hamble
was Blancove--the Sir William Blancove, Baronet, of city feasts and
charities, who, besides being a wealthy merchant, possessed of a very
acute head for banking, was a scholarly gentleman, worthy of riches.
His brother was Squire Blancove, of Wrexby; but between these two close
relatives there existed no stronger feeling than what was expressed by
open contempt of a mind dedicated to business on the one side, and quiet
contempt of a life devoted to indolence on the other. Nevertheless,
Squire Blancove, though everybody knew how deeply he despised his junior
for his city-gained title and commercial occupation, sent him his son
Algernon, to get the youth into sound discipline, if possible. This
was after the elastic Algernon had, on the paternal intimation of his
colonel, relinquished his cornetcy and military service. Sir William
received the hopeful young fellow much in the spirit with which he
listened to the tales of his brother's comments on his own line of
conduct; that is to say, as homage to his intellectual superiority. Mr.
Algernon was installed in the Bank, and sat down for a long career of
groaning at the desk, with more complacency than was expected from him.
Sir William forwarded excellent accounts to his brother of the behaviour
of the heir to his estates. It was his way of rebuking the squire, and
in return for it the squire, though somewhat comforted, despised
his clerkly son, and lived to learn how very unjustly he did so.
Adolescents, who have the taste for running into excesses, enjoy the
breath of change as another form of excitement: change is a sort of
debauch to them. They will delight infinitely in a simple country round
of existence, in propriety and church-going, in the sensation of feeling
innocent. There is little that does not enrapture them, if you tie them
down to nothing, and let them try all. Sir William was deceived by his
nephew. He would have taken him into his town-house; but his own son,
Edward, who was studying for th