and imperious ways, faded into the background now that Horace's little star
had risen.

The rest may be briefly told. Horace had a little sister who died, and he
himself could hardly remember his father. His time was divided between his
mother's house at Brighton and Brackenhill. He grew slim and tall and
handsome--a Thorne, and not a Benham, as his grandfather did not fail to
note. He was delicate. "But he will outgrow that," said Mrs. Middleton, and
loved him the better for the care she had to take of him. It was
principally for his sake that she was there. She was a widow and had no
children of her own, but when, at her brother's request, she came to
Brackenhill to make more of a home for the school-boy, she brought with her
a tiny girl, little Sissy Langton, a great-niece of her husband's.

Meanwhile, the other boy grew up in his quiet home, but death came there as
well as to Brackenhill, and seemed to take the mainspring of the household
in taking Sarah Thorne. Her father pined for her, and had no pleasure in
life except in her child. Even when the old man was growing feeble, and it
was manifest to all but the boy that he would not long be parted from his
daughter, it was a sombre but not an unhappy home for the child. Something
in the shadow which overhung it, in his grandfather's weakness and his
father's silence, made him grave and reserved, but he always felt that he
was loved. No playful home-name was ever bestowed on the little lad, but
it did not matter, for when spoken by Alfred Thorne no name could be so
tender as Percival.

The rector's death when the boy was fifteen broke up the only real home he
was destined to know, for Alfred was unable to settle down in any place for
any length of time. While his wife and her father were alive their
influence over him was supreme: he was like the needle drawn aside by a