"I will bid you good-morning, my lord." And he went without another word.

Crossing the length of the old-fashioned Elizabethan terrace, little Berk passed him: he motioned the lad toward the Viscount.

"Royal wants to see you, young one." The boy nodded and went onward; and, as Bertie turned to enter the low door that led out to the stables, he saw his father meet the lad--meet him with a smile that changed the whole character of his face, and pleasant, kindly words of affectionate welcome; drawing his arm about Berkeley's shoulder, and looking with pride upon his bright and gracious youth.
More than an old man's preference would be thus won by the young one; a considerable portion of their mother's fortune, so left that it could not be dissipated, yet could be willed to which son the Viscount chose, would go to his brother by this passionate partiality; but there was not a tinge of jealousy in Cecil; whatever else his faults he had no mean ones, and the boy was dear to him, by a quite unconscious, yet unvarying, obedience to his dead mothers' wish.
"Royal hates me as game-birds hate a red dog.

Why the deuce, I wonder ?" he thought, with a certain slight touch of pain, despite his idle philosophies and devil-may-care indifference.

"Well--I am good for nothing, I suppose.