my Tatty," said Ruth
lightly, stepping to the sofa, "she is not to write. I command her."

Chapter V.

A PROLOGUE TO NOTHING.

Sir Oliver wrote cheerfully. His lawsuit was prospering; his prompt
invasion of the field had disconcerted Lady Caroline and her
advisers. He had discovered fresh evidence of the late Sir Thomas's
insanity. His own lawyers were sanguine. They assured him that, at
the worst, the Courts would set aside the '46 will, and fall back for
a compromise on that of '44, which gave the woman a life-interest
only in the Downton estates. But the case would not be taken this
side of the Long Vacation. . . . (It was certain, then, that he could
not return in time.)

He had visited Bath and spent some weeks with his mother. He devoted
a page or two to criticism of that fashionable city. It was clear he
had picked up many threads of his younger days; had renewed old
acquaintances and made a hundred new ones. Play, he wrote, was a
craze in England; the stakes frightened a home-comer from New
England. For his part, he gamed but moderately.

"As for the women, you have spoilt me for them. I see none--not one,
dearest--who can hold a taper to you. Their artifices disgust me;
and I watch them, telling myself that my Ruth has only to enter their
balls and assemblies to triumph--nay, to eclipse them totally. . . .
And this reminds me to say that I have spoken with my mother.
She had heard, of course, from more than one. Lady Caroline's
account had been merely coarse and spiteful; but by that lady's later
conduct she was already prepared to discount it. The pair
encountered in London, at my Lady Newcastle's; and my mother (who has
spirit) refused her bow. Diana, to her credit, appears to have done
you more justice; and Mrs. Harry writes reams in your praise.
To be sure my mother, not knowing Mrs. Harry, distrusts her judgment
for a Colonial's; but I vow she is the soundest of women. . . .
In short, dear Ruth, we have only to regularise things and we are
forgiven. The good soul dotes on me, and imagines she has but a few
years left to live. This softens her. . . .

"There is a rumour--credit it, if you can!--that my Aunt Caroline
intends to espouse a Mr. Adam Rouffignac, a foreigner and a wine
merchant; I suppose (since he is reputed rich) to arm herself with
money to pay her lawyers. What _his_ object can be, poor man, I am
unable to conjecture. It is a strange world. While her ugly