! The ice is well broken, and now for
business. You will lunch with us, and dine in the evening. I have given
it out that you are of good family, so there is nothing odd in this. At
lunch you will not be the Sunchild, for my younger children will be
there; at dinner all present will know who you are, so we shall be free
as soon as the servants are out of the room.

"I am sorry, but I must send you away with George as soon as the streets
are empty--say at midnight--for the excitement is too great to allow of
your staying longer. We must keep your rug and the things you cook with,
but my wife will find you what will serve your turn. There is no moon,
so you and George will camp out as soon as you get well on to the
preserves; the weather is hot, and you will neither of you take any harm.
To-morrow by mid-day you will be at the statues, where George must bid
you good-bye, for he must be at Sunch'ston to-morrow night. You will
doubtless get safely home; I wish with all my heart that I could hear of
your having done so, but this, I fear, may not be."

"So be it," replied my father, "but there is something I should yet say.
The Mayoress has no doubt told you of some gold, coined and uncoined,
that I am leaving for George. She will also have told you that I am
rich; this being so, I should have brought him much more, if I had known
that there was any such person. You have other children; if you leave
him anything, you will be taking it away from your own flesh and blood;
if you leave him nothing, it will be a slur upon him. I must therefore
send you enough gold, to provide for George as your other children will
be provided for; you can settle it upon him at once, and make it clear
that the settlement is instead of provision for him by will. The
difficulty is in the getting the gold into Erewhon, and until it is
actually here, he must know nothing about it."

I have no space for the discussion that followed. In the end it was
settled that George was to have 2000 pounds in gold, which the Mayor
declared to be too much, and my father too little. Both, however, were
agreed that Erewhon would before long be compelled to enter into
relations with foreign countries, in which case the value of gold would
decline so much as to make 2000 pounds worth little more than it would be
in England. The Mayor proposed to buy land with it, which he would hand
over to George as a gift from himself, and this my father at once acceded