nto the
trap which Augustus Scarborough had laid for me.

"If your mother will understand it all, I do not think she will object
to me on that score. If she does quarrel with me, she will only be
fighting the Scarborough game, in which I am bound to oppose her. I am
afraid the fact is that she prefers the Scarborough game,--not because
of my sins, but from auld lang syne.

"But Augustus has got hold of my Uncle Prosper, and has done me a
terrible injury. My uncle is a weak man, and has been predisposed
against me from other circumstances. He thinks that I have neglected
him, and is willing to believe anything against me. He has stopped my
income,--two hundred and fifty pounds a year,--and is going to revenge
himself on me by marrying a wife. It is too absurd, and the proposed
wife is aunt of the man whom my sister is going to marry. It makes such
a heap of confusion. Of course, if he becomes the father of a family I
shall be nowhere. Had I not better take to some profession? Only what
shall I take to? It is almost too late for the Bar. I must see you and
talk over it all.

"You have commanded me not to write, and now there is a long letter! It
is as well to be hung for a sheep as a lamb. But when a man's character
is at stake he feels that he must plead for it. You won't be angry with
me because I have not done all that you told me? It was absolutely
necessary that I should tell you that I did not mean to ask you to break
your engagement, and one word has led to all the others. There shall be
only one other, which means more than all the rest:--that I am yours,
dearest, with all my heart,

"HARRY ANNESLEY."

"There," he said to himself, as he put the letter into the envelope,
"she may think it too long, but I am sure she would not have been
pleased had I not written at all."

That afternoon Joshua was at the rectory, having just trotted over after
business hours at the brewery because of some special word which had to
be whispered to Molly, and Harry put himself in his way as he went out
to get on his horse in the stable-yard. "Joshua," he said, "I know that
I owe you an apology."

"What for?"

"You have been awfully good to me about the horses, and I have been very
ungracious."

"Not at all."

"But I have. The truth is, I have been made thoroughly miserable by
circumstances, and, when that occurs, a man cannot pick himself up all
at once. It isn't my uncle that has made me wretched. That is a kind of
thi