There is nothing in which families differ more by nature than in the qualities of heart which bind them together or easily release them from the bonds of kinship.

The members of this small family had that in them which held them together in spite of the pulling of circumstance; for although the elder son had come on the stage of manhood ten years before the younger, although he had had talents that advanced him among scholarly men, and had been quickly taken from his first curacy to fill a superior position in a colony, he had never abated an affectionate correspondence with Alec, and had remained the hero of his young brother's imagination.

This younger son, not having the same literary tastes, and having possibly a softer heart, gratified his father by going into business with him; but at that good man's death he had had sufficient enterprise, sufficient distaste, possibly, for his English position, to sell the business that was left in his hands, and affection drew him, as a loadstone a magnet, to his brother's neighbourhood.

He brought with him securities of the small fortune they were to divide between them, and expected nothing but happiness in the meeting and prosperity in his future career.
Unfortunately, a cause of dispute between the two brothers arose instantly on Alec's arrival: there was an exceptionally good opening in Chellaston for one of Alec's calling; the brothers took different views concerning that calling; they had quarrelled with all the fire of warm natures, and were parted almost as soon as met.
"And did ye think it would be pleasing to your brother to have a tradesman of the same name and blood as himself in the same place ?" asked Bates with lack of toleration in his tone.
"That's all very fine!"-- scornfully.

"You know as well as I do that my lord and my gentleman come out to this country to do what farm-hands and cattle-men would hardly be paid to do at home--" "When they've ruined themselves first, but not till then," Bates put in.
"And besides, old Robert sets up to be a saint.