and dressing-gowns. I'd
have given a five-pound note to have seen and heard it."

"I'd have given two if it had never occurred. He had written me a letter
which I had taken as a pardon in full for all my offences. He had
assured me that he had no intention of marrying, and had offered to give
me back my old allowance. Now I am told that he has quarrelled with me
again altogether, because of some light word as to me and my concerns
spoken by this vivacious old aunt of yours. I wish your vivacious old
aunt had remained at Buntingford."

"And we had wished that your vivacious old uncle had remained at Buston
when he came love-making to Marmaduke Lodge."

"He was an old fool! and, among ourselves, always has been," said Molly,
who on the occasion thought it incumbent upon her to take the
Thoroughbung rather than the Prosper side of the quarrel.

But, in truth, this renewed quarrel between the Hall and the rectory was
likely to prove extremely deleterious to Harry Annesley's interests. For
his welfare depended not solely on the fact that he was at present heir
presumptive to his uncle, nor yet on the small allowance of two hundred
and fifty pounds made to him by his uncle, and capable of being
withdrawn at any moment, but also on the fact, supposed to be known to
all the world,--which was known to all the world before the affair in the
streets with Mountjoy Scarborough,--that Harry was his uncle's heir. His
position had been that of eldest son, and indeed that of only child to a
man of acres and squire of a parish. He had been made to hope that this
might be restored to him, and at this moment absolutely had in his
pocket the check for sixty-two pounds ten which had been sent to him by
his uncle's agent in payment of the quarter's income which had been
stopped. But he also had a farther letter, written on the next day,
telling him that he was not to expect any repetition of the payment.
Under these circumstances, what should he do?

Two or three things occurred to him. But he resolved at last to keep the
check without cashing it for some weeks, and then to write to his uncle
when the fury of his wrath might be supposed to have passed by, offering
to restore it. His uncle was undoubtedly a very silly man; but he was
not one who could acknowledge to himself that he had done an unjust act
without suffering for it. At the present moment, while his wrath was
hot, there would be no sense of contrition. His ears would still ti