"My dear young friend," said the chaplain, quietly, "my profession,
perhaps, ought to suggest to me some serious arguments against the
disposition which you so unmistakably evince; but I will confine myself
to saying that such a temper as yours is not to be kept for nothing. It
is only men in your father's position who can indulge themselves in such
a luxury, I do assure you. You'll come to grief with it some day."

Yorke laughed, good-humoredly. "What must be, will be. Let us hope there
will be no occasion for the display of my fire-works. I suppose, what
with his two packs of hounds and the rest of it, even my father will be
brought to behave himself demurely, sooner or later."

"I should like to see Carew demure," said the chaplain, smiling;
"although not reduced to that state by the extremities of poverty. Yes,
as you say," he added, in a graver tone, "the pace at which he has been
going these twenty years has begun to tell on his fortune. But it is not
the dogs that will ruin him (as they ruined poor Ryll, with his few
thousands), nor yet his hunters. It is his race-horses on the Downs
yonder that will bring him to his piece of bread."

"I suppose so," said Yorke, sighing, not so much on Carew's account as
on his own; "he backs a horse because it is his own. That is his
confounded egotism."

"Your tie of relationship, Mr. Yorke, does not, I perceive, make you
blind to your father's foibles."

"Why should it?" rejoined the young man, passionately. "Am I to feel
grateful to him for begetting me? What has he done to make me feel that
I owe him aught? Do you suppose I thank him for being admitted here,