cred
to unblemished truth and honour, a person who has desecrated it
with treason. As gentleman to gentleman, I impose on you this solemn
injunction. I could have wished to leave that young woman's children
barred from the entail; but our old tree has so few branches! You
are unwedded; Susan too. I must take my chance that Miss Clavering's
children, if ever they inherit, do not imitate the mother. I conclude
she will wed that Mainwaring; her children will have a low-born father.
Well, her race at least is pure,--Clavering and St. John are names to
guarantee faith and honour; yet you see what she is! Charles Vernon, if
her issue inherit the soul of gentlemen, it must come, after all, not
from the well-born mother! I have lived to say this,--I who--But perhaps
if we had looked more closely into the pedigree of those Claverings--.

Marry yourself,--marry soon, Charles Vernon, my dear kinsman; keep the
old house in the old line, and true to its old fame. Be kind and good to
my poor; don't strain on the tenants. By the way, Farmer Strongbow owes
three years' rent,--I forgive him. Pension him off; he can do no good to
the land, but he was born on it, and must not fall on the parish. But to
be kind and good to the poor, not to strain the tenants, you must learn
not to waste, my dear Charles. A needy man can never be generous without
being unjust. How give, if you are in debt? You will think of this
now,--now,--while your good heart is soft, while your feelings are
moved. Charley Vernon, I think you will shed a tear when you see my
armchair still and empty. And I would have left you the care of my dogs,
but you are thoughtless, and will go much to London, and they are used
to the country now. Old Jones will have a cottage in the village,--he
has promised to live there; drop in now and then, and see poor Ponto
and Dash. It is late, and old friends come to dine here. So, if anything
happens to me, and we don't meet again, good-by, and God bless you.

Your affectionate kinsman, MILES ST. JOHN.

CHAPTER VII. THE ENGAGEMENT.

It is somewhat less than three months after the death of Sir Miles
St. John; November reigns in London. And "reigns" seems scarcely a
metaphorical expression as applied to the sullen, absolute sway which
that dreary month (first in the dynasty of Winter) spreads over the
passive, dejected city.

Elsewhere in England, November is no such gloomy, grim fellow as he is
described. Over the brown glebes an