"I suppose a mother always pities the sufferings of a child."

"And removes them when she can do so. But now, mamma, is he to come here, or will you take me back to England?"

This was a question which Mrs. Mountjoy found it very difficult to answer. On the spur of the moment she could not answer it, as it would be necessary that she should first consult Sir Magnus. Could Sir Magnus undertake to confine her daughter within the precincts of the Embassy, and to exclude the lover during such time as Harry Annesley night remain in Brussels?

As she thought of the matter in her own room she conceived that there would be a great difficulty. All the world of Brussels would become aware of what was going on. The young lady would endeavor to get out, and could only be constrained by the co-operation of the servants; and the young gentleman, in his endeavors to get in, could only be prevented by the assistance of the police. Dim ideas presented themselves to her mind of farther travel. But wherever she went there would be a post-office, and she was aware that the young man could pursue her much quicker than she could fly. How good it would be that in such an emergency she might have the privilege of locking her daughter up in some convent! And yet it must be a Protestant convent, as all things savoring of the Roman Catholic religion were abhorrent to her. Altogether, as she thought of her own condition and that of her daughter, she felt that the world was sadly out of joint.

"Coming here, is he?" said Sir Magnus. "Then he will just have to go back again as wise as he came."

"But can you shut your doors against him?"

"Shut my doors! Of course I can. He'll never be able to get his nose in here if once an order has been given for his exclusion. Who's Mr. Annesley? I don't suppose he knows an Englishman in Brussels."

"But she will go out to meet him."

"What! in the streets?" said Sir Magnus, in horror.

"I fear she would."

"By George! she must be a stiff-necked one if she'll do that." Then Mrs. Mountjoy, with tears in her eyes, began to explain with very many epithets that her daughter was the best girl in all the world. She was entirely worthy of confidence. Those who knew her were aware that no better behaved young woman could exist. She was conscientious, religious, and high-principled. "But she'll go out in the streets and walk with a young man when all her friends tell her not. Is that her idea of religion?" Then Mrs. Mountjoy, with some touch of anger in the tone of her voice, said that she would return to England, and carry her daughter with her. "What the deuce can I do, Sarah, when the young lady is so unruly? I can give orders to have him shut out, and can take care that they are obeyed; but I cannot give orders to have her shut in. I should be making her a prisoner, and everybody would talk about it. In that matter you must give her the orders;—only you say that she would not comply with them."

On the following day Mrs. Mountjoy informed her daughter that they would go back to Cheltenham. She did not name an immediate day, because it would be well, she thought, to stave off the evil hour. Nor did she name a distant day, because, were she to do so, the terrible evil of Harry Annesley's arrival in Brussels would not be prevented. At first she wished to name no day, thinking that it would be a good thing to cross Harry on the road. But here Florence was too strong for her, and at last a day was fixed. In a week's time they would take their departure and go home by slow stages. With this arrangement Florence expressed herself well pleased, and of course made Harry acquainted with the probable time of their arrival.

M. Grascour, when he heard that the day had been suddenly fixed for the departure of Mrs. Mountjoy and her daughter, not unnaturally conceived that he himself was the cause of the ladies' departure. Nor did he on that account resign all hope. The young lady's mother was certainly on his side, and he thought it quite possible that were he to appear in England he might be successful. But when he had heard of her coming departure of course it was necessary that he should say some special farewell. He dined one evening at the British Embassy, and took an opportunity during the evening of finding himself alone with Florence. "And so, Miss Florence," he said, "you and your estimable mamma are about to return to England?"

"We have been here a very long time, and are going home at last."

"It seems to me but the other day when you came." said M. Grascour, with all a lover's eagerness.

"It was in autumn, and the weather was quite mild and soft. Now we are in the middle of January."

"I suppose so. But still the time has gone only too rapidly. The heart can hardly take account of days and weeks." As this was decidedly lover's talk, and was made in terms which even a young lady cannot pretend to misunderstand, Florence was obliged to answer it in some manner equally direct. And now she was angry with him. She had informed him that she was in love with another man. In doing so she had done much more than the necessity of the case demanded, and had told him, as the best way of silencing him, that which she might have been expected to keep as her own secret. And yet here he was talking to her about his heart! She made him no immediate answer, but frowned at him and looked stern. It was clear to her intelligence that he had no right to talk to her about his heart after the information she had given him. "I hope, Miss Mountjoy, that I may look forward to the pleasure of seeing you when I go over to England."

"But we don't live in London, or near it. We live down in the country—at Cheltenham."

"Distance would be nothing."

This was very bad, and must be stopped, thought Florence. "I suppose I shall be married by that time. I don't know where we may live, but I shall be happy to see you if you call."

She had here made a bold assertion, and one which M. Grascour did not at all believe. He was speaking of a visit which he might make, perhaps, in a month or six weeks, and the young lady told him that he would find her married! And yet, as he knew very well, her mother and her uncle and her aunt were all opposed to this marriage. And she spoke of it without a blush,—without any reticence! Young ladies were much emancipated, but he did not think that they generally carried their emancipation so far as this. "I hope not that," he said.

"I don't know why you should be so ill-natured as to hope it. The fact is, M. Grascour, you don't believe what I told you the other day. Perhaps as a young lady I ought not to have alluded to it, but I did so in order to set the matter at rest altogether. Of course I can't tell when you may come. If you come quite at once I shall not be married."

"No;—not married."

"But I shall be as much engaged as is possible for a girl to be. I have given my word, and nothing will make me false to it. I don't suppose you will come on my account."

"Solely on your account."

"Then stay at home. I am quite in earnest. And now I must say good-bye."

She departed, and left him seated alone on the sofa. He at first told himself that she was unfeminine. There was a hard way with her of talking about herself which he almost pronounced to be unladylike. An unmarried girl should, he thought, under no circumstances speak of the gentleman to whom her affections had been given as Miss Mountjoy spoke of Mr. Annesley. But nevertheless he would sooner possess her as his own wife than any other girl he had ever met. Something of the real passion of unsatisfied love made him feel chill at his heart. Who was this Harry Annesley, for whom she professed so warm a feeling? Her mother declared Harry Annesley to be a scapegrace, and something of the story of a discreditable midnight street quarrel between him and the young lady's cousin had reached his ears. He did not suppose it to be possible that the young lady could actually get married without her mother's co-operation, and therefore he thought that he still would go to England. In one respect he was altogether untouched. If he could ultimately succeed in marrying the young lady, she would not be a bit the worse as his wife because she had been attached to Harry Annesley. That was a kind of folly which a girl could very quickly get over when she had not been allowed to have her own way. Therefore, upon the whole, he thought that he would go to England.

But the parting with Anderson had also to be endured, and must necessarily be more difficult. She owed him a debt for having abstained, and she could not go without paying the debt by some expression of gratitude. That she would have done so had he kept aloof was a matter of course; but equally a matter of course was it that he would not keep aloof. "I shall want to see you for just five minutes to-morrow morning before you take your departure," he said, in a lugubrious voice, during her last evening.

He had kept his promise to the very letter, mooning about in his desolate manner very conspicuously. The desolation had been notorious, and very painful to Florence,—but the promise had been kept, and she was grateful. "Oh, certainly, if you wish it," she said.

"I do wish it." Then he made an appointment and she promised to keep it.

It was in the ball-room, a huge chamber, very convenient for its intended purpose, and always handsome at night-time, but looking as desolate in the morning as did poor Anderson himself. He was stalking up and down the long room when she entered it, and being at the farther end, stalked up to her and addressed her with words which he had chosen for the purpose. "Miss Mountjoy," he said, "you found me here a happy, light-hearted young man."

"I hope I leave you soon to be the same, in spite of this little accident."

He did not say that he was a blighted being, because the word had, he thought, become ridiculous; but he would have used it had he dared, as expressing most accurately his condition.

"A cloud has passed over me, and its darkness will never be effaced. It has certainly been your doing."

"Oh, Mr. Anderson! what can I say?"

"I have loved before,—but never like this."

"And so you will again."

"Never! When I declare that, I expect my word to be respected," He paused for an answer, but what could she say? She did not at all respect his word on such a subject, but she did respect his conduct. "Yes; I call upon you to believe me when I say that for me all that is over. But it can be nothing to you."

"It will be very much to me."

"I shall go on in the same disconsolate, miserable way, I suppose I shall stay here, because I shall be as well here as anywhere else. I might move to Lisbon,—but what good would that do me? Your image would follow me to whatever capital I might direct my steps. But there is one thing you can do." Here he brightened up, putting on quite an altered face.

"I will do anything, Mr. Anderson—in my power."

"If—if—if you should change—"

"I shall never change!" she said, with an angry look.

"If you should change, I think you should remember the promise you exacted and the fidelity with which it has been kept."

"I do remember it."

"And then I should be allowed to come again and have my chance. Wherever I may be, at the court of the Shah of Persia or at the Chinese capital, I will instantly come. I promised you when you asked me. Will you not now promise me?"

"I cannot promise anything—so impossible."

"It will bind you to nothing but to let me know that Mr. Annesley has gone his way." But she had to explain to him that it was impossible she should make any promise founded on the idea that Mr. Henry Annesley should ever go any way in which she would not accompany him. With that he had to be as well satisfied as the circumstances of the case would admit, and he left her with an assurance, not intended to be quite audible, that he was and ever should be a blighted individual.

When the carriage was at the door Sir Magnus came down into the hall, full of smiles and good-humor; but at that moment Lady Mountjoy was saying a last word of farewell to her relatives in her own chamber. "Good-bye, my dear; I hope you will get well through all your troubles." This was addressed to Mrs. Mountjoy. "And as for you, my dear," she said, turning to Florence, "if you would only contrive to be a little less stiff-necked, I think the world would go easier with you."

"I think my stiff neck, aunt, as you call it, is what I have chiefly to depend upon,—I mean in reference to other advice than mamma's. Good-bye, aunt."

"Good-bye, Florence." And the two parted, hating each other as only female enemies can hate. But Florence, when she was in the carriage, threw herself on to her mother's neck and kissed her.



CHAPTER XLVIII.

MR. PROSPER CHANGES HIS MIND.

When Florence with her mother reached Cheltenham she found a letter lying for her, which surprised her much. The the letter was from Harry, and seemed to have been written in better spirits than he had lately displayed. But it was very short:

"DEAREST FLORENCE,—When can I come down? It is absolutely necessary that I should see you. All my plans are likely to be changed in the most extraordinary manner.

"Nobody can say that this is a love-letter.

"Yours affectionately, H. A."

Florence, of course, showed the letter to her mother, who was much frightened by its contents. "What am I to say to him when he comes?" she exclaimed.

"If you will be so very, very good as to see him you must not say anything unkind."

"Unkind! How can I say anything else than what you would call unkind? I disapprove of him altogether. And he is coming here with the express object of taking you away from me."

"Oh no;—not at once."

"But at some day,—which I trust may be very distant. How can I speak to him kindly when I feel that he is my enemy?" But the matter was at last set at rest by a promise from Florence that she would not marry her lover in less than three years without her mother's express consent. Three years is a long time, was Mrs. Mountjoy's thought, and many things might occur within that term. Harry, of whom she thought all manner of unnatural things, might probably in that time have proved himself to be utterly unworthy. And Mountjoy Scarborough might again have come forward in the light of the world. She had heard of late that Mountjoy had been received once more into his father's full favor. And the old man had become so enormously rich through the building of mills which had been going on at Tretton, that, as Mrs. Mountjoy thought, he would be able to make any number of elder sons. On the subject of entail her ideas were misty; but she felt sure that Mountjoy Scarborough would even yet become a rich man. That Florence should be made to change on that account she did not expect. But she did think that when she should have learned that Harry was a murderer, or a midnight thief, or a wicked conspirator, she would give him up. Therefore she agreed to receive him with not actually expressed hostility when he should call at Montpelier Place.

But now, in the proper telling of our story, we must go back to Harry Annesley himself. It will be remembered that his father had called upon Mr. Prosper, to inform him of Harry's projected journey to America; that Mountjoy Scarborough had also called at Buston Hall; and that previous to these two visits old Mr. Scarborough had himself written a long letter giving a detailed account of the conflict which had taken place in the London streets. These three events had operated strongly on Mr. Prosper's mind; but not so strongly as the conduct of Miss Thoroughbung and Messrs. Soames & Simpson. It had been made evident to him, from the joint usage which he had received from these persons, that he was simply "made use of," with the object of obtaining from him the best possible establishment for the lady in question.

After that interview, at which the lady, having obtained in way of jointure much more than was due to her, demanded also for Miss Tickle a life-long home, and for herself a pair of ponies, he received a farther letter from the lawyers. This offended him greatly. Nothing on earth should induce him to write a line to Messrs. Soames & Simpson. Nor did he see his way to writing again to Messrs. Grey & Barry about such trifles as those contained in the letter from the Buntingford lawyers. Trifles to him they were not; but trifles they must become, if put into a letter addressed to a London firm. "Our client is anxious to know specifically that she is to be allowed to bring Miss Tickle with her, when she removes to Buston Hall. Her happiness depends greatly on the company of Miss Tickle, to which she had been used now for many years. Our client wishes to be assured also that she shall be allowed to keep a pair of ponies in addition to the carriage-horses, which will be maintained, no doubt, chiefly for your own purposes." These were the demands as made by Messrs. Soames & Simpson, and felt by Mr. Prosper to be altogether impossible. He recollected the passionate explosion of wrath to which the name of Miss Tickle had already brought him in presence of the clergyman of his parish. He would endure no farther disgrace on behalf of Miss Tickle. Miss Tickle should never be an inmate of his house, and as for the ponies, no pony should ever be stabled in his stalls. A pony was an animal which of its very nature was objectionable to him. There was a want of dignity in a pony to which Buston Hall should never be subjected. "And also," he said to himself at last, "there is a lack of dignity about Miss Thoroughbung herself which would do me an irreparable injury."

But how should he make known his decision to the lady herself? and how should he escape from the marriage in such a manner as to leave no stain on his character as a gentleman? If he could have offered her a sum of money, he would have done so at once; but that he thought would not be gentleman-like,—and would be a confession on his own part that he had behaved wrongly.

At last he determined to take no notice of the lawyers' letter, and himself to write to Miss Thoroughbung, telling her that the objects which they proposed to themselves by marriage were not compatible, and that therefore their matrimonial intentions must be allowed to subside. He thought it well over, and felt assured that very much of the success of such a measure must depend upon the wording of the letter. There need be no immediate haste. Miss Thoroughbung would not come to Buston again quite at once to disturb him by a farther visit. Before she would come he would have flown to Italy. The letter must be courteous, and somewhat tender, but it must be absolutely decisive. There must be no loop-hole left by which she could again entangle him, no crevice by which she could creep into Buston. The letter should be a work of time. He would give himself a week or ten days for composing it. And then, when it should have been sent, he would be off to Italy.

But before he could allow himself to go upon his travels he must settle the question about his nephew, which now lay heavy upon his conscience. He did feel that he had ill treated the young man. He had been so told in very strong language by Mr. Scarborough of Tretton, and Mr. Scarborough of Tretton was a man of very large property, and much talked about in the world. Very wonderful things were said about Mr. Scarborough, but they all tended to make Mr. Prosper believe that he was a man of distinction. And he had also heard lately about Mr. Scarborough's younger son,—or, indeed, his only son, according to the new way of speaking of him,—tidings which were not much in that young man's favor. It was from Augustus Scarborough that he had heard those evil stories about his own nephew. Therefore his belief was shaken; and it was by no means clear to him that there could be any other heir for their property.

Miss Thoroughbung had proved herself to be altogether unfit for the high honor he had intended her. Miss Puffle had gone off with Farmer Tazlehurst's son. Mr. Prosper did not think that he had energy enough to look for a third lady who might be fit at all points to become his wife. And now another evil had been added to all these. His nephew had declared his purpose of emigrating to the United States and becoming an American. It might be true that he should be driven to do so by absolute want. He, Mr. Prosper, had stopped his allowance, and had done so after deterring him from following any profession by which he might have earned his bread. He had looked into the law, and, as far as he could understand it, Buston must become the property of his nephew, even though his nephew should become an American citizen. His conscience pricked him sorely as he thought of the evil which might thus accrue, and of the disgrace which would be attached to his own name. He therefore wrote the following letter to his nephew, and sent it across to the parsonage, done up in a large envelope, and sealed carefully with the Buston arms. And on the corner of the envelope "Peter Prosper" was written very legibly:

"MY DEAR NEPHEW, HENRY ANNESLEY,—

"Under existing circumstances you will, I think, be surprised at a letter written in my handwriting; but facts have arisen which make it expedient that I should address you.

"You are about, I am informed, to proceed to the United States, a country against which I acknowledge I entertain a serious antipathy. They are not a gentlemanlike people, and I am given to understand that they are generally dishonest in all their dealings. Their President is a low person, and all their ideas of government are pettifogging. Their ladies, I am told, are very vulgar, though I have never had the pleasure of knowing one of them. They are an irreligious nation, and have no respect for the Established Church of England and her bishops. I should be very sorry that my heir should go among them.

"With reference to my stopping the income which I have hitherto allowed you, it was a step I took upon the best advice, nor can I allow it to be thought that there is any legal claim upon me for a continuance of the payment. But I am willing for the present to continue it, on the full understanding that you at once give up your American project.

"But there is a subject on which it is essentially necessary that I should receive from you, as my heir, a full and complete explanation. Under what circumstances did you beat Captain Scarborough in the streets late on the night of the 3d of June last? And how did it come to pass that you left him bleeding, speechless, and motionless on that occasion?

"As I am about to continue the payment of the sum hitherto allowed, I think it only fitting that I should receive this explanation under your own hand.—I am your affectionate uncle,

"PETER PROSPER.

"P.S.—A rumor may probably have reached you of a projected alliance between me and a young lady belonging to a family with which your sister is about to connect herself. It is right that I should tell you that there is no truth in this report."

This letter, which was much easier to write than the one intended for Miss Thoroughbung, was unfortunately sent off a little before the completion of the other. A day's interval had been intended. But the missive to Miss Thoroughbung was, under the press of difficulties, delayed longer than was intended.

There was, we grieve to say, much of joy but more of laughter at the rectory when this letter was received. As usual, Joe Thoroughbung was there, and it was found impossible to keep the letter from him. The postscript burst upon them all as a surprise, and was welcomed by no one with more vociferous joy than by the lady's nephew. "So there is an end forever to the hope that a child of the Buntingford Brewery should sit upon the throne of the Prospers." It was thus that Joe expressed himself.

"Why shouldn't he have sat there?" said Polly. "A Thoroughbung is as good as a Prosper any day." But this was not said in the presence of Mrs. Annesley, who on that subject entertained views very different from her daughter.

"I wonder what his idea is of the Church of England?" said Mr. Annesley. "Does he think that the Archbishop of Canterbury is supreme in all religious matters in America?"

"How on earth he knows that the women are all vulgar, when he has never seen one of them, is a mystery," said Harry.

"And that they are dishonest in all their dealings," said Joe. "I suppose he got that out of some of the radical news papers." For Joe, after the manner of brewers, was a staunch Tory.

"And their President, too, is vulgar as well as the ladies," said Mr. Annesley. "And this is the opinion of an educated Englishman, who is not ashamed to own that he entertains serious antipathies against a whole nation!"

But at the parsonage they soon returned to a more serious consideration of the matter. Did Uncle Prosper intend to forgive the sinner altogether? And was he coerced into doing so by a conviction that he had been told lies, or by the uncommon difficulties which presented themselves to him in reference to another heir? At any rate, it was agreed by them all that Harry must meet his uncle half-way, and write the "full and complete explanation," as desired. "'Bleeding, speechless, and motionless!'" said Harry. "I can't deny that he was bleeding; he certainly was speechless, and for a few moments may have been motionless. What am I to say?" But the letter was not a difficult one to write, and was sent across on the same day to the Hall. There Mr. Prosper gave up a day to its consideration,—a day which would have been much better devoted to applying the final touch to his own letter to Miss Thoroughbung. And he found at last that his nephew's letter required no rejoinder.

But Harry had much to do. It was first necessary that he should see his friend, and explain to him that causes over which he had no control forbade him to go to America. "Of course, you know, I can't fly in my uncle's face. I was going because he intended to disinherit me; but he finds that more troublesome than letting me alone, and therefore I must remain. You see what he says about the Americans." The gentleman, whose opinion about our friends on the other side of the Atlantic was very different from Mr. Prosper's, fell into a long argument on the subject. But he was obliged at last to give up his companion.

Then came the necessity of explaining the change in all his plans to Florence Mountjoy, and with this view he wrote the short letter given at the beginning of the chapter, following it down in person to Cheltenham. "Mamma, Harry is here," said Florence to her mother.

"Well, my dear? I did not bring him."

"But what am I to say to him?"

"How can I tell? Why do you ask me?"

"Of course he must come and see me," said Florence. "He has sent a note to say that he will be here in ten minutes."

"Oh dear! oh dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Mountjoy.

"Do you mean to be present, mamma? That is what I want to know." But that was the question which at the moment Mrs. Mountjoy could not answer. She had pledged herself not to be unkind, on condition that no marriage should take place for three years. But she could not begin by being kind, as otherwise she would immediately have been pressed to abandon that very condition. "Perhaps, mamma, it would be less painful if you would not see him."

"But he is not to make repeated visits."

"No, not at present; I think not."

"He must come only once," said Mrs. Mountjoy, firmly. "He was to have come because he was going to America. But now he has changed all his plans. It isn't fair, Florence."

"What can I do? I cannot send him to America because you thought he was to go there. I thought so too; and so did he. I don't know what has changed him; but it wasn't likely that he'd write and say he wouldn't come because he had altered his plans. Of course he wants to see me; and so do I want to see him—very much. Here he is!"

There was a ring at the bell, and Mrs. Mountjoy was driven to resolve what she would do at the moment. "You mustn't be above a quarter of an hour. I won't have you together for above a quarter of an hour,—or twenty minutes at the farthest." So saying, Mrs. Mountjoy escaped from the room, and within a minute or two Florence found herself in Harry Annesley's arms.

The twenty minutes had become forty before Harry had thought of stirring, although he had been admonished fully a dozen times that he must at that moment take his departure. Then the maid knocked at the door, and brought word "that missus wanted to see Miss Florence in her bedroom."

"Now, Harry, you must go. You really shall go,—or I will. I am very, very happy to hear what you have told me."

"But three years!"

"Unless mamma will agree."

"It is quite out of the question. I never heard of anything so absurd."

"Then you must get mamma to consent. I have promised her for three years, and you ought to know that I will keep my word. Harry, I always keep my word; do I not? If she will consent, I will. Now, sir, I really must go." Then there was a little form of farewell which need not be especially explained, and Florence went up stairs to her mother.



CHAPTER XLIX.

CAPTAIN VIGNOLLES GETS HIS MONEY.

When we last left Captain Scarborough, he had just lost an additional sum of two hundred and twenty-seven pounds to Captain Vignolles, which he was not able to pay, besides the sum of fifty pounds which he had received the day before, as the first instalment of his new allowance. This was but a bad beginning of the new life he was expected to lead under the renewed fortunes which his father was preparing for him. He had given his promissory note for the money at a week's date, and had been extremely angry with Captain Vignolles because that gentleman had, under the circumstances, been a little anxious about it. It certainly was not singular that he should have been so, as Captain Scarborough had been turned out of more than one club in consequence of his inability to pay his card debts. As he went home to his lodgings, with Captain Vignolles's champagne in his head, he felt very much as he had done that night when he attacked Harry Annesley. But he met no one whom he could consider as an enemy, and therefore got himself to bed, and slept off the fumes of the drink.

On that day he was to return to Tretton; but, when he awoke, he felt that before he did so he must endeavor to make some arrangements for paying the amount due at the end of the week. He had already borrowed twenty pounds from Mr. Grey, and had intended to repay him out of the sum which his father had given him; but that sum now was gone, and he was again nearly penniless. In this emergency there was nothing left to him but again to go to Mr. Grey.

As he was shown up the stairs to the lawyer's room he did feel thoroughly ashamed of himself. Mr. Grey knew all the circumstances of his career, and it would be necessary now to tell him of this last adventure. He did tell himself, as he dragged himself up the stairs, that for such a one as he was there could be no redemption. "It would be better that I should go back," he said, "and throw myself from the Monument." But yet he felt that if Florence Mountjoy could still be his, there might yet be a hope that things would go well with him.

Mr. Grey began by expressing surprise at seeing Captain Scarborough in town. "Oh yes, I have come up. It does not matter why, because, as usual, I have put my foot in it. It was at my father's bidding; but that does not matter."

"How have you put your foot in it?" said the attorney. There was one way in which the captain was always "putting" both his "feet in it;" but, since he had been turned out of his clubs, Mr. Grey did not think that that way was open to him.

"The old story."

"Do you mean that you have been gambling again?"

"Yes;—I met a friend last night and he asked me to his rooms."

"And he had the cards ready?"

"Of course he had. What else would any one have ready for me?"

"And he won that remnant of the twenty pounds which you borrowed from me, and therefore you want another?" Hereupon the captain shook his head. "What is it, then, that you do want?"

"Such a man as I met," said the captain, "would not be content with the remnant of twenty pounds. I had received fifty from my father, and had intended to call here and pay you."

"That has all gone too?"

"Yes, indeed. And in addition to that I have given him a note for two hundred and twenty-seven pounds, which I must take up in a week's time. Otherwise I must disappear again,—and this time forever."

"It is a bottomless gulf," said the attorney. Captain Scarborough sat silent, with something almost approaching to a smile on his mouth; but his heart within him certainly was not smiling. "A bottomless gulf," repeated the attorney. Upon this the captain frowned. "What is it that you wish me to do for you? I have no money of your father's in my hands, nor could I give it you if I had it."

"I suppose not. I must go back to him, and tell him that it is so." Then it was the lawyer's turn to be silent; and he remained thinking of it all till Captain Scarborough rose from his seat and prepared to go. "I won't trouble you any more Mr. Grey," he said.

"Sit down," said Mr. Grey. But the captain still remained standing. "Sit down. Of course I can take out my check-book, and write a check for this sum of money;—nothing would be so easy; and if I could succeed in explaining it to your father during his lifetime, he, no doubt, would repay me. And, for the sake of auld lang syne, I should not be unhappy about my money, whether he did so or not. But would it be wise? On your own account would it be wise?"

"I cannot say that anything done for me would be wise,—unless you could cut my throat."

"And yet there is no one whose future life might be easier. Your father, the circumstances of whose life are the most singular I ever knew—"

"I shall never believe all this about my mother."

"Never mind that now. We will pass that by for the present. He has disinherited you."

"That will be a question some day for the lawyers—should I live."

"But circumstances have so gone with him that he is enabled to leave you another fortune. He is very angry with your brother, in which anger I sympathize. He will strip Tretton as bare as the palm of my hand for your sake. You have always been his favorite, and so, in spite of all things, you are still. They tell me he cannot last for six months longer."

"Heaven knows I do not wish him to die."

"But he thinks that your brother does. He feels that Augustus begrudges him a few months' longer life, and he is angry. If he could again make you his heir, now that the debts are all paid, he would do so." Here the captain shook his head. "But as it is, he will leave you enough for all the needs of even a luxurious life. Here is his will, which I am going to send down to him for final execution this very day. My senior clerk will take it, and you will meet him there. That will give you ample for life. But what is the use of it all, if you can lose it in one night or in one month among a pack of scoundrels?"

"If they be scoundrels, I am one of them."

"You lose your money. You are their dupe. To the best of my belief you have never won. The dupes lose, and the scoundrels win. It must be so."

"You know nothing about it, Mr. Grey."

"This man who had your money last;—does he not live on it as a profession? Why should he win always, and you lose?"

"It is my luck."

"Luck! There is no such thing as luck. Toss up, right hand against left for an hour together, and the result will be the same. If not for an hour, then do it for six hours. Take the average, and your cards will be the same as another man's."

"Another man has his skill," said Mountjoy.

"And uses it against the unskillful to earn his daily bread. That is the same as cheating. But what is the use of all this? You must have thought of it all before."

"Yes, indeed."

"And thinking of it, you are determined to persevere. You are impetuous, not thoughtless, with your brain clouded with drink, and for the mere excitement of the thing, you are determined to risk all in a contest for which there is no chance for you,—and by which you acknowledge you will be driven to self-destruction, as the only natural end."

"I fear it is so," said the captain.

"How much shall I draw it for?" said the attorney, taking out his check-book,—"and to whom shall I make it payable? I suppose I may date it to-day, so that the swindler who gets it may think that there is plenty more behind for him to get."

"Do you mean that you are going to lend it me?"

"Oh, yes."

"And how do you mean to get it again?"

"I must wait, I suppose, till you have won it back among your friends. If you will tell me that you do not intend to look for it in that fashion, then I shall have no doubt as to your making me a legitimate payment in a very short time. Two hundred and twenty pounds won't ruin you, unless you are determined to ruin yourself." Mr. Grey the meanwhile went on writing the check. "Here is provided for you a large sum of money," and he laid his hand upon the will, "out of which you will be able to pay me without the slightest difficulty. It is for you to say whether you will or not."

"I will."

"You need not say it in that fashion;—that's easy. You must say it at some moment when the itch of play is on you; when there shall be no one by to hear: when the resolution if held, shall have some meaning in it. Then say, 'there's that money which I had from old Grey. I am bound to pay it. But if I go in there I know what will be the result. The very coin that should go into his coffers will become a part of the prey on which those harpies will feed.' There's the check for the two hundred and twenty-seven pounds. I have drawn it exact, so that you may send the identical bit of paper to your friend. He will suppose that I am some money-lender who has engaged to supply your needs while your recovered fortune lasts. Tell your father he shall have the will to-morrow. I don't suppose I can send Smith with it to-day."

Then it became necessary that Scarborough should go; but it would be becoming that he should first utter some words of thanks. "I think you will get it back, Mr. Grey."

"I dare say."

"I think you will. It may be that the having to pay you will keep me for a while from the gambling-table."

"You don't look for more than that?"

"I am an unfortunate man, Mr. Grey. There is one thing that would cure me, but that one thing is beyond my reach."

"Some woman?"

"Well;—it is a woman. I think I could keep my money for the sake of her comfort. But never mind. Good-bye, Mr. Grey. I think I shall remember what you have done for me." Then he went and sent the identical check to Captain Vignolles, with the shortest and most uncourteous epistle:

"DEAR SIR,—I send you your money. Send back the note.

"Yours. M. SCARBOROUGH."

"I hardly expected this," said the captain to himself as he pocketed the check,—"at any rate not so soon. 'Nothing venture, nothing have.' That Moody is a slow coach, and will never do anything. I thought there'd be a little money about with him for a time." Then the captain turned over in his mind that night's good work with the self-satisfied air of an industrious professional worker.

But Mr. Grey was not so well satisfied with himself, and determined for a while to say nothing to Dolly of the two hundred and twenty-seven pounds which he had undoubtedly risked by the loan. But his mind misgave him before he went to sleep, and he felt that he could not be comfortable till he had made a clean breast of it. During the evening Dolly had been talking to him of all the troubles of all the Carrolls,—how Amelia would hardly speak to her father or her mother because of her injured lover, and was absolutely insolent to her, Dolly, whenever they met; how Sophia had declared that promises ought to be kept, and that Amelia should be got rid of; and how Mrs. Carroll had told her in confidence that Carroll pere had come home the night before drunker than usual, and had behaved most abominably. But Mr. Grey had attended very little to all this, having his mind preoccupied with the secret of the money which he had lent.

Therefore Dolly did not put out her candle, and arrayed herself for bed in the costume with which she was wont to make her nocturnal visits. She had perceived that her father had something on his mind which it would be necessary that he should tell. She was soon summoned, and having seated herself on the bed, began the conversation: "I knew you would want me to-night."

"Why so?"

"Because you've got something to tell. It's about Mr. Barry."

"No indeed."

"That's well. Just at this moment I seem to care about Mr. Barry more than any other trouble. But I fear that he has forgotten me altogether,—which is not complimentary."

"Mr. Barry will turn up all in proper time," said her father. "I have got nothing to say about Mr. Barry just at present, so if you are love-lorn you had better go to bed."

"Very well. When I am love-lorn I will. Now, what have you got to tell me?"

"I have lent a man a large sum of money,—two hundred and twenty-seven pounds!"

"You are always lending people large sums of money."

"I generally get it back again."

"From Mr. Carroll, for instance,—when he borrows it for a pair of breeches and spends it in gin-and-water."

"I never lent him a shilling. He is a burr, and has to be pacified, not by loans but gifts. It is too late now for me to prevent the brother-in-lawship of poor Carroll."

"Who has got this money?"

"A professed gambler, who never wins anything, and constantly loses more than he is able to pay. Yet I do think this man will pay me some day."

"It is Captain Scarborough," said Dolly. "Seeing that his father is a very rich man indeed, and as far as I can understand gives you a great deal more trouble than he is worth, I don't see why you should lend a large sum of money to his son."

"Simply because he wanted it."

"Oh dear! oh dear!"

"He wanted it very much. He had gone away a ruined man because of his gambling; and now, when he had come back and was to be put upon his legs again, I could not see him again ruined for the need of such a sum. It was very foolish."

"Perhaps a little rash, papa."

"But now I have told you; and so there may be an end of it. But I'll tell you what, Dolly: I'll bet you a new straw hat he pays me within a month of his father's death." Then Dolly was allowed to escape and betake herself to her bed.

On that same day Mountjoy Scarborough went down to Tretton, and was at once closeted with his father. Mr. Scarborough had questions to ask about Mr. Prosper, and was anxious to know how his son had succeeded in his mission. But the conversation was soon turned from Mr. Prosper to Captain Vignolles and Mr. Grey. Mountjoy had determined, as soon as he had got the check from Mr. Grey, to say nothing about it to his father. He had told Mr. Grey in order that he need not tell his father,—if the money were forthcoming. But he had not been five minutes in his father's room before he rushed to the subject. "You got among those birds of prey again?" said his father.

"There was only one bird,—or at least two. A big bird and a small one."

"And you lost how much?" Then the captain told the precise sum. "And Grey has lent it you?" The captain nodded his head. "Then you must ride into Tretton and catch the mail to-night with a check to repay him. That you should have been able in so short a time to have found a man willing to fleece you! I suppose it's hopeless?"

"I cannot tell."

"Altogether hopeless."

"What am I to say, sir? If I make a promise it will go for nothing."

"For absolutely nothing."

"Then what would be the use of my promising?"

"You are quite logical, and look upon the matter in altogether a proper light. As you have ruined yourself so often, and done your best to ruin those that belong to you, what hope can there be? About this money that I have left you, I do not know that anything farther can be said,—unless I leave it all to an hospital. It is better that you should have it and throw it away among the gamblers, than that it should fall into the hands of Augustus. Besides, the demand is moderate. No doubt it is only a beginning, but we will see."

Then he got out his check-book, and made Mountjoy himself write the check, including the two sums which had been borrowed. And he dictated the letter to Mr. Grey:

"MY DEAR GREY,—I return the money which Mountjoy has had from you,—two hundred and twenty-seven pounds, and twenty. That, I think, is right. You are the most foolish man I know with your money. To have given it to such a scapegrace as my son Mountjoy! But you are the sweetest and finest gentleman I ever came across. You have got your money now, which is a great deal more than you can have expected or ought to have obtained. However, on this occasion you have been in great luck.

"Yours faithfully,

"JOHN SCARBOROUGH."

This letter his son himself was forced to write, though it dealt altogether with his own delinquencies; and yet, as he told himself, he was not sorry to write it, as it would declare to Mr. Grey that he had himself acknowledged at once his own sin. The only farther punishment which his father exacted was that his son should himself ride into Tretton and post the letter before he ate his dinner.

"I've got my money," said Mr. Grey, waving the check as he went into his dressing-room, with Dolly at his heels.

"Who has paid it?"

"Old Scarborough; and he made Mountjoy write the letter himself, calling me an old fool for lending it. I don't think I was such a fool at all. However, I've got my money, and you may pay the bet and not say anything more about it."



CHAPTER L.

THE LAST OF MISS THOROUGHBUNG.

Mr. Prosper, with that kind of energy which was distinctively his own, had sent off his letter to Harry Annesley, with his postscript in it about his blighted matrimonial prospects,—a letter easy to be written,—before he had completed his grand epistle to Miss Thoroughbung. The epistle to Miss Thoroughbung was one requiring great consideration. It had to be studied in every word, and re-written again and again with the profoundest care. He was afraid that he might commit himself by an epithet. He dreaded even an adverb too much. He found that a full stop expressed his feelings too violently, and wrote the letter again, for the fifth time, because of the big initial which followed the full stop. The consequence of all this long delay was, that Miss Thoroughbung had heard the news, through the brewery, before it reached her in its legitimate course. Mr. Prosper had written his postscript by accident, and, in writing it, had forgotten the intercourse between his brother-in-law's house and the Buntingford people. He had known well of the proposed marriage; but he was a man who could not think of two things at the same time, and thus had committed the blunder.

Perhaps it was better for him as it was; and the blow came to him with a rapidity which created less of suffering than might have followed the slower mode of proceeding which he had intended. He was actually making the fifth copy of the letter, rendered necessary by that violent full stop, when Matthew came to him and announced that Miss Thoroughbung was in the drawing-room. "In the house!" ejaculated Mr. Prosper.

"She would come into the hall; and then where was I to put her?"

"Matthew Pike, you will not do for my service." This had been said about once every three months throughout the long course of years in which Matthew had lived with his master.

"Very well, sir. I am to take it for a month's warning, of course." Matthew understood well enough that this was merely an expression of his master's displeasure, and, being anxious for his master's welfare, knew that it was decorous that some decision should be come to at once as to Miss Thoroughbung, and that time should not be lost in his own little personal quarrel. "She is waiting, you know, sir, and she looks uncommon irascible. There is the other lady left outside in the carriage."

"Miss Tickle! Don't let her in, whatever you do. She is the worst. Oh dear! oh dear! Where are my coat and waistcoat, and my braces? And I haven't brushed my hair. And these slippers won't do. What business has she to come at this time of day, without saying a word to anybody?" Then Matthew went to work, and got his master into decent apparel, with as little delay as possible. "After all," said Mr. Prosper, "I don't think I'll see her. Why should I see her?"

"She knows you are at home, sir."

"Why does she know I'm at home? That's your fault. She oughtn't to know anything about it. Oh dear! oh dear! oh dear!" These last ejaculations arose from his having just then remembered the nature of his postscript to Harry Annesley, and the engagement of Joe Thoroughbung to his niece. He made up his mind at the moment,—or thought that he had made up his mind,—that Harry Annesley should not have a shilling as long as he lived. "I am quite out of breath. I cannot see her yet. Go and offer the lady cake and wine, and tell her that you had found me very much indisposed. I think you will have to tell her that I am not well enough to receive her to-day."

"Get it over, sir, and have done with it."

"It's all very well to say have done with it. I shall never have done with it. Because you have let her in to-day she'll think that she can come always. Good Lord! There she is on the stairs! Pick up my slippers." Then the door was opened, and Miss Thoroughbung herself entered the room. It was an up-stairs chamber, known as Mr. Prosper's own: and from it was the door into his bedroom. How Miss Thoroughbung had learned her way to it he never could guess. But she had come up the stairs as though she had been acquainted with all the intricacies of the house from her childhood.

"Mr. Prosper," she said, "I hope I see you quite well this morning, and that I have not disturbed you at your toilet." That she had done so was evident, from the fact that Matthew, with the dressing-gown and slippers, was seen disappearing into the bedroom.

"I am not very well, thank you," said Mr. Prosper, rising from his chair, and offering her his hand with the coldest possible salutation.

"I am sorry for that,—very. I hope it is not your indisposition which has prevented you from coming to see me. I have been expecting you every day since Soames wrote his last letter. But it's no use pretending any longer. Oh, Peter, Peter!" This use of his Christian name struck him absolutely dumb, so that he was unable to utter a syllable. He should, first of all, have told her that any excuse she had before for calling him by his Christian name was now at an end. But there was no opening for speech such as that. "Well," she continued, "have you got nothing to say to me? You can write flippant letters to other people, and turn me into ridicule glibly enough."

"I have never done so."

"Did you not write to Joe Thoroughbung, and tell him you had given up all thoughts of having me?"

"Joe!" he exclaimed. His very surprise did not permit him to go farther, at the moment, than this utterance of the young man's Christian name.

"Yes, Joe,—Joe Thoroughbung, my nephew, and yours that is to be. Did you not write and tell him that everything was over?"

"I never wrote to young Mr. Thoroughbung in my life. I should not have dreamed of such a correspondence on such a subject."

"Well, he says you did. Or, if you didn't write to Joe himself, you wrote to somebody."

"I may have written to somebody, certainly."

"And told them that you didn't mean to have anything farther to say to me?" That traitor Harry had now committed a sin worse that knocking a man down in the middle of the night and leaving him bleeding, speechless, and motionless; worse than telling a lie about it;—worse even than declining to listen to sermons read by his uncle. Harry had committed such a sin that no shilling of allowance should evermore be paid to him. Even at this moment there went through Mr. Prosper's brain an idea that there might be some unmarried female in England besides Miss Puffle and Miss Thoroughbung. "Peter Prosper, why don't you answer like a man, and tell me the honest truth?" He had never before been called Peter Prosper in his whole life.

"Perhaps you had better let me make a communication by letter," he said. At that very moment the all but completed epistle was lying on the table before him, where even her eyes might reach it. In the flurry of the moment he covered it up.

"Perhaps that is the letter which has taken you so long to write?" she said.

"It is the letter."

"Then hand it me over, and save yourself the penny stamp." In his confusion he gave her the letter, and threw himself down on the sofa while she read it. "You have been very careful in choosing your language, Mr. Prosper: 'It will be expedient that I should make known to you the entire truth.' Certainly, Mr. Prosper, certainly. The entire truth is the best thing,—next to entire beer, my brother would say." "The horrid vulgar woman!" Mr. Prosper ejaculated to himself. "'There seems to have been a complete misunderstanding with regard to that amiable lady, Miss Tickle.' No misunderstanding at all. You said you liked her, and I supposed you did. And when I had been living for twenty years with a female companion, who hasn't sixpence in the world to buy a rag with but what she gets from me, was it to be expected that I should turn her out for any man?"

"An annuity might have been arranged, Miss Thoroughbung."

"Bother an annuity! That's all you think about feelings! Was she to go and live alone and desolate because you wanted some one to nurse you? And then those wretched ponies. I tell you, Peter Prosper, that let me marry whom I will, I mean to drive a pair of ponies, and am able to do so out of my own money. Ponies, indeed! It's an excuse. Your heart has failed you. You've come to know a woman of spirit, and now you are afraid that she'll be too much for you. I shall keep this letter, though it has not been sent."

"You can do as you please about that, Miss Thoroughbung."

"Oh yes; of course I shall keep it, and shall give it to Messrs. Soames & Simpson. They are most gentlemanlike men, and will be shocked at such conduct as this from the Squire of Buston. The letter will be published in the newspapers, of course. It will be very painful to me, no doubt, but I shall owe it to my sex to punish you. When all the county are talking of your conduct to a lady, and saying that no man could have done it, let alone no gentleman, then you will feel it. Miss Tickle,—and a pair of ponies! You expected to get my money and nothing to give for it. Oh, you mean man!"

She must have been aware that every word she spoke was a dagger. There was a careful analysis of his peculiar character displayed in every word of reproach which she uttered. Nothing could have wounded him more than the comparison between himself and Soames & Simpson. They were gentlemen! "The vulgarest men in all Buntingford!" he declared to himself, and always ready for any sharp practice. Whereas he was no man, Miss Thoroughbung said,—a mean creature, altogether unworthy to be regarded as a gentleman. He knew himself to be Mr. Prosper of Buston Hall, with centuries of Prospers for his ancestors; whereas Soames was the son of a tax-gatherer, and Simpson had come down from London as a clerk from a solicitor's office in the City. And yet it was true that people would talk of him as did Miss Thoroughbung! His cruelty would be in every lady's mouth. And then his stinginess about the ponies would be the gossip of the county for twelve months. And, as he found out what Miss Thoroughbung was, the disgrace of even having wished to marry her loomed terribly large before him.

But there was a twinkle of jest in the lady's eyes all the while which he did not perceive, and which, had he perceived it, he could not have understood. Her anger was but simulated wrath. She, too, had thought that it might be well, under circumstances, if she were to marry Mr. Prosper, but had quite understood that those circumstances might not be forthcoming. "I don't think it will do at all, my dear," she had said to Miss Tickle. "Of course an old bachelor like that won't want to have you."

"I beg you won't think of me for a moment," Miss Tickle had answered, with solemnity.

"Bother! why can't you tell the truth? I'm not going to throw you over, and of course you'd be just nowhere if I did. I shan't break my heart for Mr. Prosper. I know I should be an old fool if I were to marry him; and he is more of an old fool for wanting to marry me. But I did think he wouldn't cut up so rough about the ponies." And then, when no answer came to the last letter from Soames & Simpson, and the tidings reached her, round from the brewery, that Mr. Prosper intended to be off, she was not in the least surprised. But the information, she thought, had come to her in an unworthy manner. So she determined to punish the gentleman, and went out to Buston Hall and called him Peter Prosper. We may doubt, however, whether she had ever realized how terribly her scourges would wale him.

"And to think that you would let it come round to me in that way, through the young people,—writing about it just as a joke!"

"I never wrote about it like a joke," said Mr. Prosper, almost crying.

"I remember now. It was to your nephew; and of course everybody at the rectory saw it. Of course they were all laughing at you." There was one thing now written in the book of fate, and sealed as certainly as the crack of doom: no shilling of allowance should ever be paid to Harry Annesley. He would go abroad. He said so to himself as he thought of this, and said also that, if he could find a healthy young woman anywhere, he would marry her, sacrificing every idea of his own happiness to his desire of revenge upon his nephew. This, however, was only the passionate feeling of the moment. Matrimony had become altogether so distasteful to him, since he had become intimately acquainted with Miss Thoroughbung, as to make any release in that manner quite impossible to him. "Do you propose to make me any amends?" asked Miss Thoroughbung.

"Money?" said he.

"Yes; money. Why shouldn't you pay me money? I should like to keep three ponies, and to have Miss Tickle's sister to come and live with me."

"I do not know whether you are in earnest, Miss Thoroughbung."

"Quite in earnest, Peter Prosper. But perhaps I had better leave that matter in the hands of Soames & Simpson,—very gentleman-like men,—and they'll be sure to let you know how much you ought to pay. Ten thousand pounds wouldn't be too much, considering the distress to my wounded feelings." Here Miss Thoroughbung put her handkerchief up to her eyes.

There was nothing that he could say. Whether she were laughing at him, as he thought to be most probable, or whether there was some grain of truth in the demand which she made, he found it equally impossible to make any reply. There was nothing that he could say; nor could he absolutely turn her out of the room. But after ten minutes' farther continuation of these amenities, during which it did at last come home to his brain that she was merely laughing at him, he began to think that he might possibly escape, and leave her there in possession of his chamber.

"If you will excuse me, Miss Thoroughbung, I will retire," he said, rising from the sofa.

"Regularly chaffed out of your own den!" she said, laughing.

"I do not like this interchange of wit on subjects that are so serious."

"Interchange! There is very little interchange, according to my idea. You haven't said anything witty. What an idea of interchange the man has!"

"At any rate I will escape from your rudeness."

"Now, Peter Prosper, before you go let me ask you one question. Which of the two has been the rudest to the other? You have come and asked me to marry you, and have evidently wished to back out of it from the moment in which you found that I had ideas of my own about money. And now you call me rude, because I have my little revenge. I have called you Peter Prosper, and you can't stand it. You haven't spirit enough to call me Matty Thoroughbung in reply. But good-bye, Mr. Prosper,—for I never will call you Peter again. As to what I said to you about money, that, of course, is all bosh. I'll pay Soames's bill, and will never trouble you. There's your letter, which, however, would be of no use, because it is not signed. A very stupid letter it is. If you want to write naturally you should never copy a letter. Good-bye, Mr. Prosper—Peter that never shall be." Then she got up and walked out of the room.

Mr. Prosper, when he was left alone, remained for a while nearly paralyzed. That he should have ever entertained the idea of making that woman his wife! Such was his first thought. Then he reflected that he had, in truth, escaped from her more easily than he had hoped, and that she had certainly displayed some good qualities in spite of her vulgarity and impudence. She did not, at any rate, intend to trouble him any farther. He would never again hear himself called Peter by that terribly loud voice. But his anger became very fierce against the whole family at the rectory. They had ventured to laugh at him, and he could understand that, in their eyes, he had become very ridiculous.

He could see it all,—the manner in which they had made fun of him, and had been jocose over his intended marriage. He certainly had not intended to be funny in their eyes. But, while he had been exercising the duty of a stern master over them, and had been aware of his own extreme generosity in his efforts to forgive his nephew, that very nephew had been laughing at him, in conjunction with the nephew of her whom he had intended to make his wife! Not a shilling, again, should ever be allowed to Harry Annesley. If it could be so arranged, by any change of circumstances, he might even yet become the father of a family of his own.



CHAPTER LI.

MR. PROSPER IS TAKEN ILL.

When Harry Annesley returned from Cheltenham, which he did about the beginning of February, he was a very happy man. It may be said, indeed, that within his own heart he was more exalted than is fitting for a man mortal,—for a human creature who may be cut off from his joys to-morrow, or may have the very source of his joy turned into sorrow. He walked like a god, not showing it by his outward gesture, not declaring that it was so by any assumed grace or arrogant carriage of himself; but knowing within himself that that had happened down at Cheltenham which had all but divested him of humanity, and made a star of him. To no one else had it been given to have such feelings, such an assurance of heavenly bliss, together with the certainty that, under any circumstances, it must be altogether his own, for ever and ever. It was thus he thought of himself and what had happened to him. He had succeeded in getting himself kissed by a young woman.

Harry Annesley was in truth very proud of Florence, and altogether believed in her. He thought the better of himself because Florence loved him,—not with the vulgar self-applause of a man who fancies himself to be a lady-killer and therefore a grand sort of fellow, but in conceiving himself to be something better than he had hitherto believed, simply because he had won the heart of this one special girl. During that half-hour at Cheltenham she had so talked to him, and managed in her own pretty way so to express herself, as to make him understand that of all that there was of her he was the only lord and master. "May God do so to me, and more also, if to the end I do not treat her not only with all affection, but also with all delicacy of observance." It was thus that he spoke to himself of her, as he walked away from the door of Mrs. Mountjoy's house in Cheltenham.

From thence he went back to Buston, and entered his father's house with all that halo of happiness shining round his heart. He did not say much about it, but his mother and his sisters felt that he was altered; and he understood their feelings when his mother said to him, after a day or two, that "it was a great shame" that they none of them knew his Florence.

"But you will have to know her—well."

"That's of course; but it's a thousand pities that we should not be able to talk of her to you as one whom we know already." Then he felt that they had, among them all, acknowledged her to be such as she was.

There came to the rectory some tidings of the meeting which had taken place at the Hall between his uncle and Miss Thoroughbung. It was Joe who brought to them the first account; and then farther particulars leaked out among the servants of the two houses. Matthew was very discreet; but even Matthew must have spoken a word or two. In the first place there came the news that Mr. Prosper's anger against his nephew was hotter than ever. "Mr. Harry must have put his foot in it somehow." That had been Matthew's assurance, made with much sorrow to the house-keeper, or head-servant, at the rectory. And then Joe had declared that all the misfortunes which had attended Mr. Prosper's courtship had been attributed to Harry's evil influences. At first this could not but be a matter of joke. Joe's stories as he told them were full of ridicule, and had no doubt come to him from Miss Thoroughbung, either directly or through some of the ladies at Buntingford. "It does seem that your aunt has been too many for him." This had been said by Molly, and had been uttered in the presence both of Joe Thoroughbung and of Harry.

"Why, yes," said Joe. "She has had him under the thong altogether, and has not found it difficult to flog him when she had got him by the hind leg." This idea had occurred to Joe from his remembrance of a peccant hound in the grasp of a tyrant whip. "It seems that he offered her money."

"I should hardly think that," said Harry, standing up for his uncle.

"She says so; and says that she declared that ten thousand pounds would be the very lowest sum. Of course she was laughing at him."

"Uncle Prosper doesn't like to be laughed at," said Molly.

"And she did not spare him," said Joe. And then she had by heart the whole story, how she had called him Peter, and how angry he had been at the appellation.

"Nobody calls him Peter except my mother," said Harry.

"I should not dream of calling him Uncle Peter," said Molly. "Do you mean to say that Miss Thoroughbung called him Peter? Where could she have got the courage?" To this Joe replied that he believed his aunt had courage for anything under the sun. "I don't think that she ought to have called him Peter," continued Molly. "Of course after that there couldn't be a marriage."

"I don't quite see why not," said Joe. "I call you Molly, and I expect you to marry me."

"And I call you Joe, and I expect you to marry me; but we ain't quite the same."

"The Squire of Buston," said Joe, "considers himself Squire of Buston. I suppose that the old Queen of Heaven didn't call Jupiter Jove till they'd been married at any rate some centuries."

"Well done, Joe," said Harry.

"He'll become fellow of a college yet," said Molly.

"If you'll let me alone I will," said Joe. "But only conceive the kind of scene there must have been at the house up there when Aunt Matty had forced her way in among your uncle's slippers and dressing-gowns. I'd have given a five-pound note to have seen and heard it."

"I'd have given two if it had never occurred. He had written me a letter which I had taken as a pardon in full for all my offences. He had assured me that he had no intention of marrying, and had offered to give me back my old allowance. Now I am told that he has quarrelled with me again altogether, because of some light word as to me and my concerns spoken by this vivacious old aunt of yours. I wish your vivacious old aunt had remained at Buntingford."

"And we had wished that your vivacious old uncle had remained at Buston when he came love-making to Marmaduke Lodge."

"He was an old fool! and, among ourselves, always has been," said Molly, who on the occasion thought it incumbent upon her to take the Thoroughbung rather than the Prosper side of the quarrel.

But, in truth, this renewed quarrel between the Hall and the rectory was likely to prove extremely deleterious to Harry Annesley's interests. For his welfare depended not solely on the fact that he was at present heir presumptive to his uncle, nor yet on the small allowance of two hundred and fifty pounds made to him by his uncle, and capable of being withdrawn at any moment, but also on the fact, supposed to be known to all the world,—which was known to all the world before the affair in the streets with Mountjoy Scarborough,—that Harry was his uncle's heir. His position had been that of eldest son, and indeed that of only child to a man of acres and squire of a parish. He had been made to hope that this might be restored to him, and at this moment absolutely had in his pocket the check for sixty-two pounds ten which had been sent to him by his uncle's agent in payment of the quarter's income which had been stopped. But he also had a farther letter, written on the next day, telling him that he was not to expect any repetition of the payment. Under these circumstances, what should he do?

Two or three things occurred to him. But he resolved at last to keep the check without cashing it for some weeks, and then to write to his uncle when the fury of his wrath might be supposed to have passed by, offering to restore it. His uncle was undoubtedly a very silly man; but he was not one who could acknowledge to himself that he had done an unjust act without suffering for it. At the present moment, while his wrath was hot, there would be no sense of contrition. His ears would still tingle with the sound of the laughter of which he had supposed himself to have been the subject at the rectory. But that sound in a few weeks might die away, and some feeling of the propriety of justice would come back upon the poor man's mind. Such was the state of things upon which Harry resolved to wait for a few weeks.

But in the mean time tidings came across from the Hall that Mr. Prosper was ill. He had remained in the house for two or three days after Miss Thoroughbung's visit. This had given rise to no special remarks, because it was well known that Mr. Prosper was a man whose feelings were often too many for him. When he was annoyed it would be long before he would get the better of the annoyance; and during such periods he would remain silent and alone. There could be no question that Miss Thoroughbung had annoyed him most excessively. And Matthew had been aware that it would be better that he should abstain from all questions. He would take the daily newspaper in to his master, and ask for orders as to the daily dinner, and that would be all. Mr. Prosper, when in a fairly good humor, would see the cook every morning, and would discuss with her the propriety of either roasting or boiling the fowl, and the expediency either of the pudding or the pie. His idiosyncrasies were well known, and the cook might always have her own way by recommending the contrary to that which she wanted,—because it was a point of honor with Mr. Prosper not to be led by his servants. But during these days he simply said, "Let me have dinner and do not trouble me." This went on for a day or two without exciting much comment at the rectory. But when it went on beyond a day or two it was surmised that Mr. Prosper was ill.

At the end of a week he had not been seen outside the house, and then alarm began to be felt. The rumor had got abroad that he intended to go to Italy, and it was expected that he would start, but no sign came of his intended movements; not a word more had been said to Matthew on the subject. He had been ordered to admit no visitor into the house at all, unless it were some one from the firm of Grey & Barry. From the moment in which he had got rid of Miss Thoroughbung he had been subject to some dread lest she should return. Or if not she herself, she might, he thought, send Soames & Simpson, or some denizen from the brewery. And he was conscious that not only all Buston, but all Buntingford was aware of what he had attempted to do. Every one whom he chanced to meet would, as he thought, be talking of him, and therefore he feared to be seen by the eye of man, woman, or child. There was a self-consciousness about him which altogether overpowered him. That cook with whom he used to have the arguments about the boiled chicken was now an enemy, a domestic enemy, because he was sure that she talked about his projected marriage in the kitchen. He would not see his coachman or his groom, because some tidings would have reached them about that pair of ponies. Consequently he shut himself up altogether, and the disease became worse with him because of his seclusion.

And now from day to day, or, it may be more properly said, from hour to hour, news came across to the rectory of the poor squire's health. Matthew, to whom alone was given free intercourse with his master, became very gloomy. Mr. Prosper was no doubt gloomy, and the feeling was contagious. "I think he's going off his head; that's what I do think," he said, in confidential intercourse with the cook.

That conversation resulted in Matthew's walking across to the rectory, and asking advice from the rector; and in the rector paying a visit to the Hall. He had again consulted with his wife, and she had recommended him to endeavor to see her brother. "Of course, what we hear about his anger only comes from Joe, or through the servants. If he is angry, what will it matter?"

"Not in the least to me," said the rector; "only I would not willingly trouble him."

"I would go," said the rector's wife, "only I know he would require me to agree with him about Harry. That, of course, I cannot do."

Then the rector walked across to the Hall, and sent up word by Matthew that he was there, and would be glad to see Mr. Prosper, if Mr. Prosper were disengaged. But Matthew, after an interval of a quarter of an hour, came back with merely a note: "I am not very well, and an interview at the present moment would only be depressing. But I would be glad to see my sister, if she would come across to-morrow at twelve o'clock. I think it would be well that I should see some one, and she is now the nearest.—P.P." Then there arose a great discussion at the rectory as to what this note indicated. "She is now the nearest!" He might have so written had the doctor who attended him told him that death was imminent. Of course she was the nearest. What did the "now" mean? Was it not intended to signify that Harry had been his heir, and therefore the nearest; but that now he had been repudiated? But it was of course resolved that Mrs. Annesley should go to the Hall at the hour indicated on the morrow.

"Oh yes; I'm up here; where else should I be,—unless you expected to find me in my bed?" It was thus that he answered his sister's first inquiry as to his condition.

"In bed? Oh no! Why should any one expect to find you in bed, Peter?"

"Never call me by that name again!" he said, rising up from his chair, and standing erect, with one arm stretched out. She called him Peter, simply because it had been her custom so to do during the period of nearly fifty years in which they had lived in the same parish as brother and sister. She could, therefore, only stare at him and his tragic humor, as he stood there before her. "Though of course it is madness on my part to object to it! My godfather and godmother christened me Peter, and our father was Peter before me, and his father too was Peter Prosper. But that woman has made the name sound abominable in my ears."

"Miss Thoroughbung, you mean?"

"She came here, and so be-Petered me in my own house,—nay, up in this very room,—that I hardly knew whether I was on my head or my heels."

"I would not mind what she said. They all know that she is a little flighty."

"Nobody told me so. Why couldn't you let me know that she was flighty beforehand? I thought that she was a person whom it would have done to marry."

"If you will only think of it, Peter—" Here he shuddered visibly. "I beg your pardon, I will not call you so again. But it is unreasonable to blame us for not telling you about Miss Thoroughbung."

"Of course it is. I am unreasonable, I know it."

"Let us hope that it is all over now."

"Cart-ropes wouldn't drag me up to the hymeneal altar,—at least not with that woman."

"You have sent for me, Peter—I beg pardon. I was so glad when you sent. I would have come before, only I was afraid that you would be annoyed. Is there anything that we can do for you?"

"Nothing at all that you can do, I fear."

"Somebody told us that you were thinking of going abroad." Here he shook his head. "I think it was Harry." Here he shook his head and frowned. "Had you not some idea of going abroad?"

"That is all gone," he said, solemnly.

"It would have enabled you to get over this disappointment without feeling it so acutely."

"I do feel it; but not exactly the disappointment. There I think I have been saved from a misfortune which would certainly have driven me mad. That woman's voice daily in my ear could have had no other effect. I have at any rate been saved from that."

"What is it, then, that troubles you?"

"Everybody knows that I intended it. All the country has heard of it. But yet was not my purpose a good one? Why should not a gentleman marry if he wants to leave his estate to his own son?"

"Of course he must marry before he can do that."

"Where was I to get a young lady—just outside of my own class? There was Miss Puffle. I did think of her. But just at the moment she went off with young Tazlehurst. That was another misfortune. Why should Miss Puffle have descended so low just before I had thought of her? And I couldn't marry quite a young girl. How could I expect such a one to live here with me at Buston, where it is rather dull? When I looked about there was nobody except that horrid Miss Thoroughbung. You just look about and tell me if there was any one else. Of course my circle is circumscribed. I have been very careful whom I have admitted to my intimacy, and the result is that I know almost nobody. I may say that I was driven to ask Miss Thoroughbung."

"But why marry at all unless you're fond of somebody to be attached to?"

"Ah!"

"Why marry at all? I say. I ask the question knowing very well why you intended to do it."

"Then why do you ask?" he said, angrily.

"Because it is so difficult to talk of Harry to you. Of course I cannot help feeling that you have injured him."

"It is he that has injured me. It is he that has brought me to this condition. Don't you know that you've all been laughing at me down at the rectory since this affair of that terrible woman?" While he paused for an answer to his question Mrs. Annesley sat silent. "You know it is true. He and that man whom Molly means to marry, and the other girls, and their father and you, have all been laughing at me."

"I have never laughed."

"But the others?" And again he waited for a reply. But the no reply which came did as well as any other answer. There was the fact that he had been ridiculed by the very young man whom it was intended that he should support by his liberality. It was impossible to tell him that a man who had made himself so absurd must expect to be laughed at by his juniors. There was running through his mind an idea that very much was due to him from Harry; but there was also an idea that something too was due from him. There was present, even to him, a noble feeling that he should bear all the ignominy with which he was treated, and still be generous. But he had sworn to himself, and had sworn to Matthew, that he would never forgive his nephew. "Of course you all wish me to be out of the way?"

"Why do you say that?"

"Because it is true. How happy you would all be if I were dead, and Harry were living here in my place."

"Do you think so?"

"Yes, I do. Of course you would all go into mourning, and there would be some grimace of sorrow among you for a few weeks, but the sorrow would soon be turned into joy. I shall not last long, and then his time will come. There! you may tell him that his allowance shall be continued, in spite of all his laughing. It was for that purpose that I sent for you. And, now you know it, you can go and leave me." Then Mrs. Annesley did go, and rejoiced them all up at the rectory by these latest tidings from the Hall. But now the feeling was, how could they show their gratitude and kindness to poor Uncle Prosper?



CHAPTER LII.

MR. BARRY AGAIN.

"Mr. Barry has given me to understand that he means to come down to-morrow." This was said by Mr. Grey to his daughter.

"What does he want to come here for?"

"I suppose you know why he wants to come here?" Then the father was silent, and for some time Dolly remained silent also. "He is coming to ask you to consent to be his wife."

"Why do you let him come, papa?"

"I cannot hinder him. That, in the first place. And then I don't want to prevent his coming."

"Oh, papa!"

"I do not want to prevent his coming. And I do not wish you now at this instant to pledge yourself to anything."

"I cannot but pledge myself."

"You can at any rate remain silent while I speak to you." There was a solemnity in his manner which almost awed her, so that she could only come nearer to him and sit close to him, holding his hand in hers. "I wish you to hear what I have got to say to you, and to make no answer till you shall make it to-morrow to him, after having fully considered the whole matter. In the first place, he is an honest and good man, and certainly will not ill-treat you."

"Is that so much?"

"It is a great deal, as men go. It would be a great deal to me to be sure that I had left you in the hands of one who is, of his nature, tender and affectionate."

"That is something; but not enough."

"And then he is a careful man, who will certainly screen you from all want; and he is prudent, walking about the world with his eyes open,—much wider than your father has ever done." Here she only pressed his hand. "There is nothing to be said against him, except that something which you spotted at once when you said that he was not a gentleman. According to your ideas, and to mine, he is not quite a gentleman; but we are both fastidious."

"We must pay the penalty of our tastes in that respect."

"You are paying the penalty now by your present doubts. But it is not yet too late for you to get the better of it. Though I have acknowledged that he is not quite a gentleman, he is by no means the reverse. You are quite a lady."

"I hope so."

"But you are not particularly good-looking."

"Papa, you are not complimentary."

"My dear, I do not intend to be so. To me your face, such as it is, is the sweetest thing on earth to look upon."

"Oh, papa;—dear papa!" and she threw her arms round his neck and kissed him.

"But having lived so long with me you have acquired my habits and thoughts, and have learned to disregard utterly your outward appearance."

"I would be decent and clean and womanly."

"That is not enough to attract the eyes of men in general. But he has seen deeper than most men do."

"Into the value of the business, you mean?" said she.

"No, Dolly; I will not have that! that is ill-natured, and, as I believe, altogether untrue. I think of Mr. Barry that he would not marry any girl for the sake of the business, unless he loved her."

"That is nonsense, papa. How can Mr. Barry love me? Did he and I ever have five minutes of free conversation together?"

"Unless he meant to love, would be nearer the mark; and knew that he could do so. You will be quite safe in his hands."

"Safe, papa!"

"So much for yourself; and now I must say a few words as to myself. You are not bound to marry him, or any one else, to do me a good turn; but I think you are bound to remember what my feelings would be if on my death-bed I were leaving you quite alone in the world. As far as money is concerned, you would have enough for all your wants; but that is all that you would have. You have become so thoroughly my friend, that you have hardly another real friend in the world."

"That is my disposition."

"Yes; but I must guard against the ill-effects of that disposition. I know that if some man came the way, whom you could in truth love, you would make the sweetest wife that ever a man possessed."

"Oh, papa, how you talk! No such man will come the way, and there's an end of it."

"Mr. Barry has come the way,—and, as things go, is deserving of your regard. My advice to you is to accept him. Now you will have twenty-four hours to think of that advice, and to think of your own future condition. How will life go with you if you should be left living in this house all alone?"

"Why do you speak as though we were to be parted to-morrow?"

"To-morrow or next day," he said very solemnly. "The day will surely come before long. Mr. Barry may not be all that your fancy has imagined."

"Decidedly not."

"But he has those good qualities which your reason should appreciate. Think it over, my darling. And now we will say nothing more about Mr. Barry till he shall have been here and pleaded his own cause."

Then there was not another word said on the subject between them, and on the next morning Mr. Grey went away to his chambers as usual.

Though she had strenuously opposed her father through the whole of the conversation above given, still, as it had gone on, she had resolved to do as he would her; not indeed, that is, to marry this suitor, but to turn him over in her mind yet once again, and find out whether it would be possible that she should do so. She had dismissed him on that former occasion, and had not since given a thought to him, except as to a nuisance of which she had so far ridded herself. Now the nuisance had come again, and she was to endeavor to ascertain how far she could accustom herself to its perpetual presence without incurring perpetual misery. But it has to be acknowledged that she did not begin the inquiry in a fair frame of mind. She declared to herself that she would think about it all the night and all the morning without a prejudice, so that she might be able to accept him if she found it possible.

But at the same time there was present to her a high, black stone wall, at one side of which stood she herself while Mr. Barry was on the other. That there should be any clambering over that wall by either of them she felt to be quite impossible, though at the same time she acknowledged that a miracle might occur by which the wall would be removed,

So she began her thinking, and used all her father's arguments. Mr. Barry was honest and good, and would not ill-treat her. She knew nothing about him, but would take all that for granted as though it were gospel,—because her father had said so. And then it was to her a fact that she was by no means good-looking,—the meaning of which was that no other man would probably want her. Then she remembered her father's words,—"To me your face is the sweetest thing on earth to look upon." This she did believe. Her plainness did not come against her there. Why should she rob her father of the one thing which to him was sweet in the world? And to her, her father was the one noble human being whom she had ever known. Why should she rob herself of his daily presence? Then she told herself,—as she had told him,—that she had never had five minutes free conversation with Mr. Barry in her life. That certainty was no reason why free conversation should not be commenced. But then she did not believe that free conversation was within the capacity of Mr. Barry. It would never come, though she might be married to him for twenty years. He too might, perhaps, talk about his business; but there would be none of those considerations as to radical good or evil which made the nucleus of all such conversations with her father. There would be a flatness about it all which would make any such interchange of words impossible. It would be as though she had been married to a log of wood, or rather a beast of the field, as regarded all sentiment. How much money would be coming to him? Now her father had never told her how much money was coming to him. There had been no allusion to that branch of the subject.

And then there came other thoughts as to that interior life which it would be her destiny to lead with Mr. Barry. Then came a black cloud upon her face as she sat thinking of it. "Never," at last she said, "never, never! He is very foolish not to know that it is impossible." The "he" of whom she then spoke was her father, and not Mr. Barry. "If I have to be left alone, I shall not be the first. Others have been left alone before me. I shall at any rate be left alone." Then the wall became higher and more black than ever, and there was no coming of that miracle by which it was to be removed. It was clearer to her than ever that neither of them could climb it. "And, after all," she said to herself, "to know that your husband is not a gentleman! Ought that not to be enough? Of course a woman has to pay for her fastidiousness. Like other luxuries, it is costly; but then, like other luxuries, it cannot be laid aside." So, before that morning was gone, she made up her mind steadily that Mr. Barry should never be her lord and master.

How could she best make him understand that it was so, so that she might be quickly rid of him? When the first hour of thinking was done after breakfast, it was that which filled her mind. She was sure that he would not take an answer easily and go. He would have been prepared by her father to persevere,—not by his absolute words, but by his mode of speaking. Her father would have given him to understand that she was still in doubt, and therefore might possibly be talked over. She must teach him at once, as well as she could, that such was not her character, and that she had come to a resolution which left him no chance. And she was guilty of one weakness which was almost unworthy of her. When the time came she changed her dress, and put on an old shabby frock, in which she was wont to call upon the Carrolls. Her best dresses were all kept for her father,—and, perhaps, accounted for that opinion that to his eyes her face was the sweetest thing on earth to look upon. As she sat there waiting for Mr. Barry, she certainly did look ten years older than her age.