"You may well say that, sir! Expensive!--It is frightful, horrible,
ruinous!--Expensive! Twenty pounds a year board and Latin; five guineas
washing; five more for writing and arithmetic. Sir, if I were not
resolved that you should not want education, though you may want fortune,
I should--yes, I should--what do you mean, sir?--you are laughing! Is
this your respect, your gratitude to your father?"

A slight shade fell over the bright and intelligent countenance of the
boy.

"Don't let us talk of gratitude," said he sadly; "Heaven knows what either
you or I have to be grateful for! Fortune has left to your proud name but
these bare walls and a handful of barren acres; to me she gave a father's
affection--not such as Nature had made it, but cramped and soured by
misfortunes."

Here Percy paused, and his father seemed also struck and affected. "Let
us," renewed in a lighter strain this singular boy, who might have passed,
by some months, his sixteenth year,--"let us see if we cannot accommodate
matters to our mutual satisfaction. You can ill afford my schooling, and
I am resolved that at school I will not stay. Saville is a relation of
ours; he has taken a fancy to me; he has even hinted that he may leave me
his fortune; and he has promised, at least, to afford me a home and his
tuition as long as I like. Give me free passport hereafter to come and go
as I list, and I in turn, will engage never to cost you another shilling.
Come, sir, shall it be a compact?"

"You wound me, Percy," said the father, with a mournful pride in his tone;
"I have not deserved this, at least from you. You know not, boy--you know
not all that has hardened this heart; but to you it has not been hard, and