"Like them!" said I, "I think they're horrid."
"Oh, that's the kindest thing of all you have done for me," he exclaimed,
"I thought all--all middle-aged people liked my father and mother."
He had been about to call me old, but I was only fifty-seven, and was not
going to have this, so I made a face when I saw him hesitating, which
drove him into "middle-aged."
"If you like it," said I, "I will say all your family are horrid except
yourself and your aunt Alethea. The greater part of every family is
always odious; if there are one or two good ones in a very large family,
it is as much as can be expected."
"Thank you," he replied, gratefully, "I think I can now stand almost
anything. I will come and see you as soon as I come out of gaol. Good-
bye." For the warder had told us that the time allowed for our interview
was at an end.
CHAPTER LXVII
As soon as Ernest found that he had no money to look to upon leaving
prison he saw that his dreams about emigrating and farming must come to
an end, for he knew that he was incapable of working at the plough or
with the axe for long together himself. And now it seemed he should have
no money to pay any one else for doing so.
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