unnatural parent had left all to his elder brother, and cut him off with
a shilling.

In a moment he comprehended the full extent of his misfortune. He had
been brought up a gentleman; he was now penniless--without money or
interest to secure a respectable situation, in which he might hope by
industry and perseverance to obtain a competency. Homeless and
friendless, whither could he go? How could he learn to forget what he
had been, what he might still be, and all that he had lost? He took up
his hat from the table on which his father's unjust testament lay, tore
from it the crape that surrounded it--that outward semblance of woe,
which in his case was a bitter mockery--and trampled it beneath his
feet. His mother raised her weeping eyes silently and imploringly to his
face. He returned to her side, pressed her hand affectionately between
his own, and casting a contemptuous glance upon his brother, quitted the
apartment, and, a few minutes after, the Hall.

When at a distance from the base wretch who had robbed him of his
patrimony, by poisoning his father's mind against him, Algernon gave
free vent to the anguish that oppressed him. Instead of seeking the
widow's cottage, and pouring into the bosom of Elinor the history of his
wrongs, he hurried to that very dell in the park which had witnessed his
brother's jealous agonies, and throwing himself at his full length upon
the grass, he buried his face in his hands and wept.

Could he have guessed his brother's passion for Elinor Wildegrave, or
had he witnessed his despair on that memorable night that had made him
the happiest of men, he would frankly have forgiven him the ruin he had
wrought.