and heir." Although in the very middle class of society into which Henry
Mesurier was born, the dignity of eldest son is one but very
contingently connected with tangible inheritance, it is none the less
vigorously kept up; and, no doubt, without any consciousness of
partiality, Henry Mesurier, from his childhood, had been brought up to
regard himself as a sort of young prince, for whom all the privileges of
home were, by divine right, reserved. For example, he took his meals
with his parents fully five years before any of his sisters were
allowed to do so; and for retention of this privilege, when at length
the democratic measure of its extension to his two elder sisters was
proposed, he fought with the bitterest spirit of caste. Indeed, few
oligarchs have been more wildly hated than Henry Mesurier up to the age,
say, of fourteen. That was the age of his last thrashing, and it was in
the gloomy dusk of that momentous occasion, as he lay alone with
smarting back in the twilight of an unusually early bed-time, that a
possible new view of woman--as a creature of like passions and
privileges--presented itself to him.

His thrashing had been so unjustly severe, that even the granite little
hearts of his sisters had been softened; and Esther, managing to secrete
a cake that he loved from the tea that was lost to him, stole with it to
the top of the house, where he writhed amid lonely echoes and shadows.

She had brought it to him awkwardly, by no means sure of its reception,
but sure in her heart that she would hate him for ever, if he missed the
meaning of the little solatium. But fortunately his back was far too
sore, and his spirit too broken to remember his pride, and he accepted
the offering with gratitude and tears.

"Kiss me, Esther," he had said; and a wonderful thrill had gone through