te to
you, and you must answer me. Think what a comfort your letters will be to
me; I shall be able to depend on what you say. Lady Betty is so careless,
she knows what Etta is, and yet she will leave her letters about, and
more than once they have not reached me. I am afraid that Leah is a
little unscrupulous in such matters.'

I was aghast as I listened to her, but she changed the subject quickly.

'What were we talking about? Oh, I said Giles was hard; and so he was;
but Eric was faulty too.

'He was very idle; he would not work, and he thought of nothing but his
painting. Giles always says I encouraged him in his idleness; but this is
hardly the truth. I used to try and coax him to open his books, but he
had got this craze for painting, and he spent hours at his easel. I
thought it was a great pity that Giles forced him to take up law; if he
had talent it was surely better for him to be an artist; but Giles and
Etta persisted in ignoring his talent. They called his pictures daubs,
and ridiculed his artistic notions.'

'Do you really believe that he would have worked successfully as an
artist?'

'It is difficult for me to judge. Eric was so young, and had had little
training, and then he only painted in a desultory way: as I have told
you, he was very idle. I think if Giles had been more fatherly with him,
and had remonstrated with him more gently, and showed him the sense and
fitness of things, Eric would have been reasonable; but Etta made so much
mischief between them that things only got worse and worse. Eric was
extravagant; he never managed money well, and he got into debt, and that
made Giles furious, and when Eric lost his temper--for he was very hot
and soon got into a passion--Giles's coolness and hard sneering speeches
nearly drove Eric wild. He came to me one day in the garden looking as
white as a sheet,--that was the day before the cheque was missed,--and
told me, in a conscience-stricken voice, that it was all up between him
and Giles, he had got into a passion and struck Giles across the face.

'"I don't know why he did not knock me down," cried the poor lad. "I
deserved it, for I saw him wince with the pain; but he only took me by
the shoulder--you know how strong Giles is--and turned me out of the room
without saying a word, and there was the mark of my hand across his
cheek. I feel like Cain, I do indeed, Gladys, 'For he that hateth his
brother is a murderer'; and I hate Giles." And the poor