had been concealed from her, or look upon his
likeness to the family with suspicion.

But the duchess seemed perfectly indifferent to the duke's ward, or if
she did interest herself, it was only slightly or good-naturedly, as when
she answered the duke's remarks, one day, by saying:

"If the dear boy is a relative of the family, however distant, and your
ward besides, why don't you have him home for the holidays?"

"Oh, schoolboys at home for the holidays are always a nuisance. He will
go to Wales with Simpson and his lads, when they go for their short
vacation," answered the duke, not unpleased that his wife took kindly
to the notion of his ward.

In due time the youth entered Oxford. The duke spoke of the fact to the
duchess. Then she answered not so good-humoredly as before; indeed, there
was a shade of annoyance and anxiety in her tones, as she said:

"Oxford is very expensive, and a young man may make it quite ruinous.
I hope the youth's friends have left him means enough of his own. I
would not speak of such a matter," she added apologetically, "only the
restoration of Lone seems so to swallow up all our resources as to leave
us nothing for charitable objects."

"The youth has ample means for educational purposes, and to establish him
in some profession. Of course, he cannot indulge in any of those
university extravagances and dissipations that are the destruction of
so many fine young men; but, then, he is not that kind of lad; a steady,
studious boy, brought up by--a widowed mother and a priest," answered the
duke, with just a slight faltering in his voice, in the latter clause of
his speech.

"Such boys are more apt than others to develop into the wildest young
men," replied the lady; and circumstances proved that she was right.

John Scott, at Trinity College, Oxford, passed as the grand-nephew of the
Duke of Hereward, and the next in succession, after the young Earl of
Arondelle to the dukedom.

The young Earl of Arondelle was still at Eton. And the duke determined to
send him from Eton to Cambridge, instead of Oxford, where John Scott was
at college; for the father of these two boys wished them never to meet!

At Oxford, John Scott, as the grand-nephew of the Duke of Hereward,
bearing an unmistakable likeness to the family, and being, besides, a
young man of pleasing address, soon won his way among the most exclusive
of the aristocrats there; and pride and vanity tempted him to vie with
them in ex