y the mercy of Providence, be yet set right
in the world, and so soon as that time comes, I will remember, and I
will act; but my children--you will see that wretched girl, my
daughter--education, society, all would come too late--my children have
been ruined by it."

'"I have not done it; but I know what you mean," I said. "You menace
litigation whenever you have the means; but you forget that Austin placed
you under promise, when he gave you the use of this house and place, never
to disturb my title to Elverston. So there is my answer, if you mean that."

'"I mean what I mean," he replied, with his old smile.

'"You mean then," said I, "that for the pleasure of vexing me with
litigation, you are willing to forfeit your tenure of this house and
place."

'"Suppose I _did_ mean precisely that, why should I forfeit anything?
My beloved brother, by his will, has given me a right to the use of
Bartram-Haugh for my life, and attached no absurd condition of the kind you
fancy to his gift."

'Silas was in one of his vicious old moods, and liked to menace me. His
vindictiveness got the better of his craft; but he knows as well as I do
that he never could succeed in disturbing the title of my poor dear Harry
Knollys; and I was not at all alarmed by his threats; and I told him so, as
coolly as I speak to you now.

'"Well, Monica," he said, "I have weighed you in the balance, and you are
not found wanting. For a moment the old man possessed me: the thought of
my children, of past unkindness, and present affliction and disgrace,
exasperated me, and I was mad. It was but for a moment--the galvanic spasm
of a corpse. Never was breast more dead than mine to the passions and
ambitions of the world. They are not for white locks like these, nor for
a man who, for a week in every month, lies in the gate of death. Will you
shake hands? _Here_--I _do_ strike a truce; and I _do_ forget and forgive
_everything_."

'I don't know what he meant by this scene. I have no idea whether he was
acting, or lost his head, or, in fact, why or how it occurred; but I am
glad, darling, that, unlike myself, I was calm, and that a quarrel has not
been forced upon me.'

When our turn came and we were summoned to the presence, Uncle Silas was
quite as usual; but Cousin Monica's heightened colour, and the flash of her
eyes, showed plainly that something exciting and angry had occurred.

Uncle Silas commented in his own vein upon the effect of Bartram a