310
exclaimed, 'Ban, ban, Caliban! You who are emancipated from a Redstone, congratulate me!'
Felix neither observed on the vast difference between the excellent confidential Spooner and pettily jealous Redstone, nor on the extremely dissimilar mode of emancipation. He was more occupied with the momentous responsibility of having assisted to cut his brother loose from the protection to which his father had confided him. Mr. Audley's warning that he was inclined to be weak where Edgar was concerned, came before him. Yet the life of luxury and unfulfilled duties was in his eyes such a wrongful course, that he felt justified in having put an end to it; and his heart warmed with hope and exultation as he recollected how Etty's success had been owing to his brother's aid, and felt himself putting Edgar's foot on the first round of the ladder, and freeing his ascent from all that had hitherto trammelled it. Such bright visions haunted him when talking was impossible on the omnibus, outside which Edgar had exalted him-- he did not well know why till on descending at Charing Cross, he found he was to have an interview with Mr. Renville, who was copying a picture in the National Gallery, and whom he found, to his great relief, to be no wild Bohemian, but a simple painstaking business- like man, who had married a German hausfrau, and lodged a few art students with unexceptionable references. Knowing Edgar already, he had measured his powers, and assured Felix that his talent was undoubted, though whether that talent amounted to genius could only be decided when the preliminary studies were accomplished; but even if it were not of the very highest order (a supposition that rather hurt Felix's feelings), the less aspiring walks of the profession would afford sufficient security of maintenance to justify the expense of the study. He talked with sense and coolness; and his charges, though falling severely on such funds as were at the disposal of the young pillar of the house, were, Edgar declared, and Felix could well bel