that she would not
worry the earl to fulfil the word she supposed him to mean in its full
meaning.

The promise was unreluctantly yielded. No, she would not write. Admiral
Fakenham, too, engaged to leave the matter to a man of honour.

Meanwhile, Chillon John had taken a journey to Lekkatts; following
which, his uncle went to London. Lord Fleetwood heard that Miss Kirby
kept him bound. He was again the fated prisoner of his word.

And following that, not so very long, there was the announcement of the
marriage of Chillon John Kirby Levellier, Lieutenant in the King's Own
Hussars, and Henrietta, daughter of Admiral Baldwin Fakenham. A
county newspaper paragraph was quoted for its eulogy of the Beauty of
Hampshire--not too strong, those acquainted with her thought. Interest
at Court obtained an advancement for the bridegroom: he was gazetted
Captain during his honeymoon, and his prospects under his uncle's name
were considered fair, though certain people said at the time, it was
likely to be all he would get while old Lord Levellier of Leancats
remained in the flesh.

Now, as it is good for those to tell who intend preserving their taste
for romance and hate anatomical lectures, we never can come to the exact
motives of any extraordinary piece of conduct on the part of man or
woman. Girls are to read; and the study of a boy starts from the monkey.
But no literary surgeon or chemist shall explain positively the cause of
the behaviour of men and women in their relations together; and speaking
to rescue my story, I say we must with due submission accept the facts.
We are not a bit the worse for wondering at them. So it happened that
Lord Fleetwood's reply to Lord Levellier's hammer--hammer by post
and messenger at his door, one may call it, on the subject of the
celebration of the marriage of the young Croesus and Carinthia Jane,
in which there was demand for the fixing of a date forthwith, was
despatched on the day when London had tidings of Henrietta Pakenham's
wedding.

The letter, lost for many years, turned up in the hands of a Kentish
auctioneer, selling it on behalf of a farm-serving man, who had it from
Lord Levellier's cook and housemaid, among the things she brought him as
her wifely portion after her master's death, and this she had not found
saleable in her husband's village at her price, but she had got the
habit of sticking to the scraps, being proud of hearing it said that she
had skinned Leancats to so