As it was--interested parties did their best to widen the breach.
"Edward and I were school-fellows; and though little harmony existed between the elder branches of the family, we loved like brothers.

He was a handsome, generous, high-spirited fellow, but rash and extravagant.

While at school he was always in debt and difficulty, to the great annoyance of his money-loving father, who looked upon me as the aider and abettor in all his scrapes.

We continued firm friends until the night before he left college, when the quarrel, which I do not mean to particularize, took place; from which period we never met, and all correspondence ceased between us.

I heard, that in after-years, he made a love connexion; but I never learned the particulars from any one but your uncle Robert; and he did not inform me, that Edward had left a son--nor can I comprehend his motive for concealing the fact." Sir Alexander paused and looked earnestly in my face.