youth into sound discipline, if possible. This was after the elastic
Algernon had, on the paternal intimation of his colonel, relinquished his
cornetcy and military service. Sir William received the hopeful young
fellow much in the spirit with which he listened to the tales of his
brother's comments on his own line of conduct; that is to say, as homage
to his intellectual superiority. Mr. Algernon was installed in the Bank,
and sat down for a long career of groaning at the desk, with more
complacency than was expected from him. Sir William forwarded excellent
accounts to his brother of the behaviour of the heir to his estates. It
was his way of rebuking the squire, and in return for it the squire,
though somewhat comforted, despised his clerkly son, and lived to learn
how very unjustly he did so. Adolescents, who have the taste for running
into excesses, enjoy the breath of change as another form of excitement:
change is a sort of debauch to them. They will delight infinitely in a
simple country round of existence, in propriety and church-going, in the
sensation of feeling innocent. There is little that does not enrapture
them, if you tie them down to nothing, and let them try all. Sir William
was deceived by his nephew. He would have taken him into his town-house;
but his own son, Edward, who was studying for the Law, had chambers in
the Temple, and Algernon, receiving an invitation from Edward, declared a
gentle preference for the abode of his cousin. His allowance from his
father was properly contracted to keep him from excesses, as the genius
of his senior devised, and Sir William saw no objection to the scheme,
and made none. The two dined with him about twice in the month.

Edward Blancove was three-and-twenty years old, a student by fits, and a
young man given to be moody. He had powers of gaiety far eclipsing
Algernon's, but he was not the same easy tripping sinner and flippant
soul. He was in that yeasty condition of his years when action and
reflection alternately usurp the mind; remorse succeeded dissipation, and