Ravenshoe. By Henry Kingsley.

RANFORD. 25
foolish. Let us hope that he will be a warning to all sinners
in this respect.
Then, after church, there would be dinner, at his father's lunchtime, in the dark old hall, and there would be more to tell his father and brother than could be conveniently got through at that
meal; then there was church again, and a long stroll in the golden sunshine along the shore. Ah, happy summer Sabbaths!
The only two people who were ever cold to Charles, were his
brother and Mackworth. Not that they were openly unkind, but
there was between both of them and himself an indefinable gulf,
an entire want of sympathy, which grieved him sometimes, though
he was as yet too young to be much troubled by it. He only exhausted all his little arts of pleasing towards them to try and win
them; he was indefatigable in running messages for Cuthbert and
the chaplain; and once, when kind grandaunt Ascot (she was a
Miss Headstall, daughter of Sir Cingle Headstall, and married
George Lord Ascot, brother of Lady Alicia, Densil's mother) sent
him a pineapple in a box, he took it to the priest and would have
had him take it. Mackworth refused it, but looked on him not
unkindly for a few minutes, and then turned away with a sigh.
Perhaps he was trying to recall the time so long, long ago, when
his own face was as open and as innocent as that. God knows!
Charles cried a little, because the: priest would n't take it, and,
having given his brother the best slice, ate the rest in the stable,
with the assistance of his foster-brother and two of the pad grooms.
Thereby proving himself to be a lad of low and dissipated habits!
Cuthbert was at this time a somewhat good-looking young fellow of sixteen. Neither of the brothers was what would be called
handsome, though, if Charles's face was the most pleasing, Cuthbert certainly had the most regular features. His forehead was
lofty, although narrow, and fiat at the sides; his cheek-bones were
high, and his nose was aquiline, not ill-formed, though prominent,
starting rather suddenly out below his eyes; the lips were thin,
the mouth small and firmly closed, and the chin short- and prominent. The tout ensemble was hardly pleasing even at this youthful period; the face was too much formed and decided for so
young a man.
Cuthbert was a reserved, methodical lad, with whom no one
could find fault, and yet whom few liked. He was studious and
devout to an extent rare in one so young; and, although a capital
horseman and a good shot, he but seldom indulged in those amusements, preferring rather a walk with the steward, and soon returning to the dark old library to his books and Father Mackworth. There they two would sit, like two owls, hour after hour,
appearing only at meals, and talking French to one another, noticing Charley but little; who, however, was always full of news,
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