"We are of the tail of the nobility, good your Majesty. My father is a

baronet--one of the smaller lords by knight service {2}--Sir Richard

Hendon of Hendon Hall, by Monk's Holm in Kent."

The name has escaped my memory. Go on--tell me thy story."

'Tis not much, your Majesty, yet perchance it may beguile a short

half-hour for want of a better. My father, Sir Richard, is very rich,

and of a most generous nature. My mother died whilst I was yet a boy. I

have two brothers: Arthur, my elder, with a soul like to his father's;

and Hugh, younger than I, a mean spirit, covetous, treacherous, vicious,

underhanded--a reptile. Such was he from the cradle; such was he ten

years past, when I last saw him--a ripe rascal at nineteen, I being

twenty then, and Arthur twenty-two. There is none other of us but the

Lady Edith, my cousin--she was sixteen then--beautiful, gentle, good, the

daughter of an earl, the last of her race, heiress of a great fortune and

a lapsed title. My father was her guardian. I loved her and she loved

me; but she was betrothed to Arthur from the cradle, and Sir Richard

would not suffer the contract to be broken. Arthur loved another maid,

and bade us be of good cheer and hold fast to the hope that delay and

luck together would some day give success to our several causes. Hugh

loved the Lady Edith's fortune, though in truth he said it was herself he

loved--but then 'twas his way, alway, to say the one thing and mean the

other. But he lost his arts upon the girl; he could deceive my father,

105

The Prince and The Pauper