mother; "uncles can't be expected
to do everything as though they were in love."

"Fancy Uncle Peter in love!" said Kate. Mr. Prosper was called Uncle
Peter by the girls, though always in a sort of joke. Then the other two
girls shook their heads very gravely, from which Harry learned that the
question respecting the choice of Miss Matilda Thoroughbung as a
mistress for the Hall had been discussed also before them.

"I am not going to marry all the family," said Molly.

"Not Miss Matilda, for instance," said her brother, laughing.

"No, especially not Matilda. Joshua is quite as angry about his aunt as
anybody here can be. You'll find that he is more of an Annesley than a
Thoroughbung."

"My dear," said the mother, "your husband will, as a matter of course,
think most of his own family. And so ought you to do of his family,
which will be yours. A married woman should always think most of her
husband's family." In this way the mother told her daughter of her
future duties; but behind the mother's back Kate made a grimace, for the
benefit of her sister Fanny, showing thereby her conviction that in a
matter of blood,--what she called being a gentleman,--a Thoroughbung could
not approach an Annesley.

"Mamma does not know it as yet," Molly said afterward in privacy to her
brother, "but you may take it for granted that Uncle Peter has been into
Buntingford and has made an offer to Aunt Matilda. I could tell it at
once, because she looked so sharp at me to-day. And Joshua says that he
is sure it is so by the airs she gives herself."

"You think she'll have him?"

"Have him! Of course she'll have him. Why shouldn't she? A wretched old
maid living with a companion like that would have any one."

"She has got a lot of money."

"She'll take care of her money, let her alone for that.

"And she'll have his house to live in. And there'll be a jointure. Of
course, if there were to be children--"

"Oh, bother!"

"Well, perhaps there will not. But it will be just as bad. We don't mean
even to visit them; we think it so very wicked. And we shall tell them a
bit of our mind as soon as the thing has been publicly declared."

CHAPTER XXIV.

HARRY ANNESLEY'S MISERY.

The conversation which took place that evening between Harry and his
father was more serious in its language, though not more important in
its purpose. "This is bad news, Harry," said the rector.

"Yes, indeed, sir."'

"Your uncle, no doubt, can