His patience was exhausted; human endurance could stand it no longer;
and he felt that if Ear-gate was to be stormed much longer on the same
subject, he should go mad, and be driven from the field. A magic word
had been whispered in his ear by his eldest son. "Father, let him go:
think how happy and quiet we shall be at home, when this hopeful uncle
and nephew are away."

This hint was enough: the old man capitulated without another opposing
argument, and consented to what he termed the ruin of his youngest son.
How Mrs. Hurdlestone and Uncle Alfred triumphed in the victory they
thought they had obtained!--yet it was all owing to that one sentence
from the crafty lips of Mark, muttered into the ear of the old man.
Algernon was to go to Oxford, and after the completion of his studies
there, make the tour of the Continent, accompanied by his uncle. This
was the extent of Mrs. Hurdlestone's ambition; and many were her private
instructions to her gay, thoughtless son, to be merry and wise, and not
draw too frequently upon his father's purse. The poor lady might as well
have lectured to the winds, as preached on prudence to Uncle Alfred's
accomplished pupil; for both had determined to fling off all restraint
the moment they left the shade of the Oak Hall groves behind them.

Algernon was so elated with his unexpected emancipation from the
tyrannical control of his father and brother, that he left the stately
old house with as little regret as a prisoner would do who had been
confined for years in some magnificent castle, which had been converted
into a county jail, and, from the force of melancholy associations, had
lost all its original beauty in his eyes. The world was now within his
grasp--its busy scenes all before him: these he expected to find replete
with happiness and decked with flowers.