"MY DEAR NEPHEW, HENRY ANNESLEY,--

"Under existing circ.u.mstances 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 circ.u.mstances did you beat Captain Scarborough in the streets late on the night of the 3d of June last? And how did it come to pa.s.s 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 circ.u.mstances 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?"