misdoubt the daughter of the Old Buccaneer: she might
be simple, at her age, and she certainly was ignorant; but she clung to
her prize. Still the promise was extracted from her, 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
considerd 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 no