Page:The Mysterious Warning - Parsons (1796, volume 1).djvu/50

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the servants were told they had two masters, and equal power was to be lodged in my hands. 'Tis true I had no right to expect it, yet why make such liberal offers, when the tenor of his conduct, and the behaviour of the servants are contradictory, when every thing he does carries the air of a favour, and every attendance in the servants is ushered in with "my master ordered me to do this, or that?" yet, perhaps, I am capricious, my situation is delicate, and my mind, from a long habitude of discontent, may see things with a jaundiced eye, which in themselves bear a very different interpretation: Let me not be unjust in my surmises, for surely the Count has been ever warmly my friend, nor is it his fault that I am cut off from a participation of my father's fortune. How few half brothers would have acted like Rhodophil!—Ashamed of his first uneasy doubts, Ferdinand turned eagerly to the bright side of his brother's character, and did him more than justice from an apprehension that he had done him less.

The next morning, taking his accustomed walk, he met Ernest, anxious to ease the heart of his old friend, and do credit to his brother, he repeated the conversation on the