is in the
wind; and since that, he inferred the engagement, when he came to me in
no end of a rage, because my backwoodsman had conscientious scruples
against partaking in their concoction of evil spirits.'

'Do you mean that Mervyn wants to employ him?'

'To take him into partnership, on the consideration of a certain thirty
thousand. You may judge whence that was to come! And he, like Robert,
declined to live by murdering bodies and souls. I am afraid Mervyn has
been persecuting them ever since.'

'Ever since when?'

'This last conversation was some three weeks ago. I suspect the
principal parties settled it on that snowy Twelfth-day--'

'But which of them, Owen?'

'Which?' exclaimed Owen, laughing. 'The goggle or the squint?'

'For shame, Owen. But I cannot believe that Phoebe would not have told
me!'

'Having a sister like Lady Bannerman may hinder confidences to friends.'

'Now, Owen, are you sure?'

'As sure as I was that it was a moonstruck man that slept in my room in
Woolstone-lane. I knew that Cynthia's darts had been as effective as
though he had been a son of Niobe!'

'I don't believe it yet,' cried Honor; 'an honourable man--a sensible
girl! Such a wild thing!'

'Ah! Queen Elizabeth! Queen Elizabeth! shut up an honourable man and a
sensible girl in a cedar parlour every evening for ten days, and then
talk of wild things! Have you forgotten what it is to be under
twenty-five?'

'I hate Queen Elizabeth,' said Honor, somewhat tartly.

He muttered something of an apology, and resumed his book. She worked on
in silence, then looking up said, rather as if rejoicing in a valid
objection, 'How am I to know that this man is first in the succession? I
am not suspecting him of imposition. I believe that, as you say, his
mother was a Charlecote, but how do I know that she had not half-a-dozen
brothers. There is no obligation on me to leave the place to any one,
but this youth ought not to come before others.'

'That is soon answered,' said Owen. 'The runaway, your grandfather's
brother, led a wild, Leather-Stocking life, till he was getting on in
years, then married, luckily not a squaw, and died at the end of the
first year, leaving one daughter, who married Major Randolf, and had this
only son.'

'The same relation to me as Humfrey! Impossible! And pray how do you
prove this?'

'I got Currie to make notes for me which I can get at in my room,' said
Owen. 'You can set your lawy