He talked freely, as became him at his father’s table. If lady Ann said next to nothing, she said nearly as much as usual and was perfectly civil. Arthur was sullen but not rude. Theodora’s joy made her talk as she had never talked before. Vixen gave herself to her dinner, but the shadow of a grimace now and then reminded Richard of the old days in the library.

Having the heart of a poet, the brain of a scientist, and the hands of a workman—hands, that is, made for making—Richard talked so vitally that in most families all would have been interested. Indeed, Arthur would have enjoyed listening, but he was otherwise occupied battling his pride. He could not help feeling himself a poor creature beside the son of the low-born woman. He insisted to himself that his brother could not have the feelings of a gentleman, that he must have poverty-stricken ways of looking at things. He could, it was true, find nothing in his manners, carriage, or speech, unlike a gentleman, but the vulgarity must be there, and he watched to find it. For he was not himself a gentleman yet.

When they retired to the drawing room after dinner, and Richard had sung a ballad so as almost to make lady Ann drop a scale or two from her fish-eyes, Arthur went out of the room stung with envy, and not ashamed of it. The thing most alien to the true idea of humanity is the notion that our well-being lies in surpassing our fellows. We have to rise above ourselves, not above our neighbours, to take all the good of them, not from them, and give them all our good in return. That which cannot be freely shared can never be possessed.

Arthur went to his room with a gnawing at his heart. Not merely must he knock under to the foundling, but confess that the foundling could do most things better than he and was his superior, in accomplishment as well as education.—“But let us see how he rides and shoots!” he thought.

Vixen had been saying to herself all throughout dinner, “What a mean fellow to come like a fox and steal poor Arthur’s property!” But even she was cowed a little by his singing, and felt for the moment in the presence of a superior.

Sir Wilton was delighted. Here was a son to represent him—the son of the woman the county had refused to acknowledge! What was lady Ann’s plebeian litter beside this high-bred, modest, self-possessed fellow? He was worthy of his father, by Jove!

He went early to bed, and Richard was not sorry. He, too, retired early, leaving the rest to talk him over.

How they did it, I do not care to put on record. Theodora said little, for her heart had come awake with a new and lovely sense of gladness and hope.

The next morning Richard came upon Arthur shooting at a target. He joined him, but found himself not up to Arthur’s skill. When his brother began to talk about shooting pheasants, he found in Richard a strong dislike to killing.