could be got to express a preference for one way over another, and that
your father had to strain every nerve to send you to college--to the
disadvantage, for a time at least, of others of the family. I am sorry
to have to remind you also that you did not make it any easier for him
by your mode of living while there."

"I didn't run up a single bill!" cried Cornelius with indignation; "and
my father knows it!"

"He does; but he knows also that your cousin Robert did not spend above
two-thirds of what you did, and made more of his time too."

"He was in _rather_ a different set," sneered the youth.

"And you know," his mother went on, "that his main design in placing you
in your uncle's bank was that you might gain such a knowledge of
business as will be necessary to the proper management of the money he
will leave behind him. When you have gained that knowledge, there will
be time to look farther, for you are young yet."

Now his father's money was the continuous occasion of annoyance to
Cornelius, for it was no secret from his family how he meant to dispose
of it. He intended, namely, to leave it under trustees, of whom he
wished his son to be one until he married, when it was to be divided
equally among his children.

This arrangement was not agreeable to Cornelius, who could not see, he
said, what advantage in that case he had from being the eldest of the
family.