n unintelligible hints of numerous
projects for money-making. Just after the removal of the bereaved
family to Twybridge, they were surprised by a visit from Andrew, in
answer to one of whose letters Mrs. Peak had sent news of her husband's
death. Though her dislike of the man amounted to loathing, the widow
could not refuse him hospitality; she did her best, however, to prevent
his coming in contact with anyone she knew. Andrew declared that he was
at length prospering; he had started a coffee-shop at Dalston, in
north-east London, and positively urged a proposal (well-meant, beyond
doubt) that Godwin should be allowed to come to him and learn the
business. Since then the Londoner had once again visited Twybridge,
towards the end of Godwin's last school-year. This time he spoke of
himself less hopefully, and declared a wish to transfer his business to
some provincial town, where he thought his metropolitan experience
might be of great value, in the absence of serious competition. It was
not difficult to discover a family likeness between Andrew's
instability and the idealism which had proved the ruin of Nicholas.

On this second occasion Godwin tried to escape a meeting with his
uncle. Unable to do so, he sat mute, replying to questions
monosyllabically. Mrs. Peak's shame and annoyance, in face of this
London-branded vulgarian, were but feeble emotions compared with those
of her son. Godwin hated the man, and was in dread lest any
school-fellow should come to know of such a connection. Yet delicacy
prevented his uttering a word on the subject to his mother. Mrs Peak's
silence after Andrew's departure made it uncertain how she regarded the
obligation of kindred, and in any such matter as this the boy was far
too sensitive to risk giving pain. But to his brother Oliver he spoke.

'What is the brute to us? When I'm a man, let him venture to come near
me, and see what sort of a reception he'll get! I hate low, uneducated
people! I hate them worse than the filthiest vermin!--don't you?'

Oliver, aged but thirteen, assented, as he habitually did to any
question which seemed to await an affirmative.

'They ought to be swept off the face of the earth!' pursued Godwin,
sitting up in bed--for the dialogue took place about eleven o'clock at
night. 'All the grown-up creatures, who can't speak proper English and
don't know how to behave themselves, I'd transport them to the Falkland
Islands,'--this geographic precision was a not