excellent terms with the owner of Chad. Brother Emmanuel had been
an inmate of the priory before he was selected by Sir Oliver for
the education of his sons. He was considered a youth of no small
promise, and the knight was well pleased at the progress made by
his boys since they had been studying with him.

Today there was a look of annoyance upon the handsome face of Sir
Oliver Chadgrove. It was a striking countenance at all times, in
which sternness of purpose and kindness of heart were blended in a
fashion that was both attractive and unusual. He had the same
regular features, rather square in the outline, which he had
transmitted to his children; and his hair, which was now silvered
with many streaks, had been raven black in its day. His carriage
was upright and fearless, and he was very tall and powerfully
proportioned. It was Bertram's keenest ambition to grow up in all
points like his father, and he copied him, consciously and
unconsciously, in a fashion that often raised a smile on his
mother's face.

"I have been favoured with another insolent letter from my Lord of
Mortimer," he said. "He had better take heed that he try not my
patience too far, and that I go not to the king and lay a complaint
before him. I will do so if I be much more troubled."

"What says he now, father?" asked Bertram eagerly, forgetting in
his eagerness the generally observed maxim that the sons spoke not
at table till they were directly addressed. But the knight did not
himself heed this breach of decorum.

"It is the same old story; but every year he grows more grasping