darling crying for? I did not mean to be cross. _Was_ I
cross?' said this momentary phantom of a grim Lady Knollys, in an instant
translated again into kind, pleasant Cousin Monica, with her arms about my
neck.

'No, no, indeed--only I thought I had vexed you; and, I believe, thinking
of Uncle Silas makes me nervous, and I can't help thinking of him nearly
always.' 'Nor can I, although we might both easily find something better to
think of. Suppose we try?' said Lady Knollys.

'But, first, I must know a little more about that Mr. Charke, and what
circumstances enabled Uncle Silas's enemies to found on his death that
wicked slander, which has done no one any good, and caused some persons so
much misery. There is Uncle Silas, I may say, ruined by it; and we all know
how it darkened the life of my dear father.'

'People will talk, my dear. Your uncle Silas had injured himself before
that in the opinion of the people of his county. He was a black sheep,
in fact. Very bad stories were told and believed of him. His marriage
certainly was a disadvantage, you know, and the miserable scenes that went
on in his disreputable house--all that predisposed people to believe ill of
him.'

'How long is it since it happened?'

'Oh, a long time; I think before you were born,' answered she.

'And the injustice still lives--they have not forgotten it yet?' said I,
for such a period appeared to me long enough to have consigned anything in
its nature perishable to oblivion.

Lady Knollys smiled.

'Tell me, like a darling cousin, the whole story as well as you can
recollect it. Who was Mr. Charke?'

'Mr. Charke, my dear, was a gentleman on the turf--that is the phrase, I
think--one of those London men, without birth or breeding, who merely in
right of their vices and their money are admitted to associate with young
dandies who like hounds and horses, and all that sort of thing. That set
knew him very well, but of course no one else. He was at the Matlock
races, and your uncle asked him to Bartram-Haugh; and the creature, Jew
or Gentile, whatever he was, fancied there was more honour than, perhaps,
there really was in a visit to Bartram-Haugh.'

'For the kind of person you describe, it _was_, I think, a rather unusual
honour to be invited to stay in the house of a man of Uncle Ruthyn's
birth.'

'Well, so it was perhaps; for though they knew him very well on the course,
and would ask him to their tavern dinners, they would not, of c