to
overcome. This is the more to be regretted because he is charming, on
the few occasions when I find him disengaged. If you wish I knew more
about my father, we are in complete agreement as usual--I wish, too.

But there is a dear friend of yours and mine, who is just the person we
want to help us. Need I say that I allude to Mrs. Staveley?

I called on her yesterday, not long after she had paid a visit to my
father. Luck had favored her. She arrived just at the time when hunger
had obliged him to shut up his books, and ring for something to eat.
Mrs. Staveley secured a favorable reception with her customary tact and
delicacy. He had a fowl for his dinner. She knows his weakness of old;
she volunteered to carve it for him.

If I can only repeat what this clever woman told me of their talk,
you will have a portrait of Mr. Dunboyne the elder--not perhaps a
highly-finished picture, but, as I hope and believe, a good likeness.

Mrs. Staveley began by complaining to him of the conduct of his son.
I had promised to write to her, and I had never kept my word. She had
reasons for being especially interested in my plans and prospects, just
then; knowing me to be attached (please take notice that I am quoting
her own language) to a charming friend of hers, whom I had first met
at her house. To aggravate the disappointment that I had inflicted, the
young lady had neglected her, too. No letters, no information. Perhaps
my father would kindly enlighten her? Was the affair going on? or was it
broken off?

My father held out his plate and asked for the other wing of the
fowl. "It isn't a bad one for London," he said; "won't you have some
yourself?"

"I don't seem to have interested you," Mrs. Staveley remarked.

"What did you expect me to be interested in?" my father inquired. "I was
absorbed in the fowl. Favor me by returning to the subject."

Mrs. Staveley admits that she answered this rather sharply: "The
subject, sir, was your son's admiration for a charming girl: one of the
daughters of Mr. Gracedieu, the famous preacher."

My father is too well-bred to speak to a lady while his attention is
absorbed by a fowl. He finished the second wing, and then he asked if
"Philip was engaged to be married."

"I am not quite sure," Mrs. Staveley confessed.

"Then, my dear friend, we will wait till we _are_ sure."

"But, Mr. Dunboyne, there is really no need to wait. I suppose your son
comes here, now and then, to see you?"