ed
at the university, he was disgraced and expelled from the army! He
might have had the living of Boodle" (her ladyship gave it to one of
her nephews), "but he would not take his degree; his papa would have
purchased him a troop--nay, a lieutenant-colonelcy some day, but for his
fatal excesses. And now as long as my dear husband will listen to the
voice of a wife who adores him--never, never shall he spend a shilling
upon so worthless a young man. He has a small income from his mother
(I cannot but think that the first Lady Fitz-Boodle was a weak and
misguided person); let him live upon his mean pittance as he can, and I
heartily pray we may not hear of him in gaol!"

My brother, after he came to the estate, married the ninth daughter
of our neighbor, Sir John Spreadeagle; and Boodle Hall has seen a new
little Fitz-Boodle with every succeeding spring. The dowager retired to
Scotland with a large jointure and a wondrous heap of savings. Lady Fitz
is a good creature, but she thinks me something diabolical, trembles
when she sees me, and gathers all her children about her, rushes into
the nursery whenever I pay that little seminary a visit, and actually
slapped poor little Frank's ears one day when I was teaching him to ride
upon the back of a Newfoundland dog.

"George," said my brother to me the last time I paid him a visit at the
old hall, "don't be angry, my dear fellow, but Maria is in a--hum--in
a delicate situation, expecting her--hum"--(the eleventh)--"and do
you know you frighten her? It was but yesterday you met her in the
rookery--you were smoking that enormous German pipe--and when she came
in she had an hysterical seizure, and Drench says that in her situation
it's dangerous. And I say, George, if you go to town you'll find a
couple of hundred at your banker's." And with this the poor fellow shook
me by the hand, and called for a fresh bottle of claret.

Afterwards he told me, with many hesitations, that my room at Boodle
Hall had been made into a second nursery. I see my sister-in-law in
London twice or thrice in the season, and the little people, who have
almost forgotten to call me uncle George.

It's hard, too, for I am a lonely man after all, and my heart yearns to
them. The other day I smuggled a couple of them into my chambers, and
had a little feast of cream and strawberries to welcome them. But it had
like to have cost the nursery-maid (a Swiss girl that Fitz-Boodle hired
somewhere in his travels