ly
informed me that she had selected a wife for me. Now I want you to
understand, old boy, that I fully appreciated my mother's motives. She
was quite right, I dare say, about my wasting my life; quite right,
too, about the benefit of settling down; and she was also very kind to
take all the trouble of selecting a wife off my hands. Under other
circumstances I dare say I should have thought the matter over, and
perhaps I should have been induced even to go so far as to survey the
lady from a distance, and argue the point with my mother pro and con.
But the fact is, the thing was distasteful, and wouldn't bear thinking
about, much less arguing. I was too lazy to go and explain the matter,
and writing was not my forte. Besides, I didn't want to thwart my
mother in her plans, or hurt her feelings; and so the long and the
short of it is, I solved the difficulty and cut the knot by crossing
quietly over to Norway. I wrote a short note to my mother, making no
allusion to her project, and since then I've been gradually working my
way down to the bottom of the map of Europe, and here I am."

"You didn't see the lady, then?"

"No."

"Who was she?"

"I don't know."

"Don't know the lady?"

"No."

"Odd, too! Haven't you any idea? Surely her name was mentioned?"

"No; my mother wrote in a roundabout style, so as to feel her way. She
knew me, and feared that I might take a prejudice against the lady. No
doubt I should have done so. She only alluded to her in a general
way."

"A general way?"

"Yes; that is, you know, she mentioned the fact that the lady was a
niece of Sir Gilbert Biggs."

"What!" cried Dacres, with a start.

"A niece of Sir Gilbert Biggs," repeated Hawbury.

"A niece--of--Sir Gilbert Biggs?" said Dacres, slowly. "Good Lord!"

"Yes; and what of that?"

"Very much. Don't you know that Minnie Fay is a niece of Sir Gilbert
Biggs?"

"By Jove! So she is. I remember being startled when you told me that,
and for a moment an odd fancy came to me. I wondered whether your
child-angel might not be the identical being about whom my poor dear
mother went into such raptures. Good Lord! what a joke! By Jove!"

"A joke!" growled Dacres. "I don't see any joke in it. I remember when
you said that Biggs's nieces were at the bottom of your troubles, I
asked whether it might be this one."

"So you did, old chap; and I replied that I hoped not. So you need not
shake your gory locks at me, my boy."

"But I don't