ase, never to name that--person--
in my hearing again!"

"Certainly, Madam," said my Uncle Charles, with a naughty look at me
which nearly upset my gravity. If I had dared to laugh, I do not know
what would have happened to me.

"The age is quite levelling enough, and the scoundrels quite numerous
enough, without your joining them, Mr Charles Carlingford Desborough!"

Saying which, Grandmamma arose, and as Hatty said afterwards, "swept
from the room"--my Uncle Charles offering her his arm, and assuring her,
with a most disconcerting look over his shoulder at us, that he would do
his very best to mend his manners.

"Your manners are good enough, Sir," said Grandmamma severely: "'tis
your morals I wish to mend."

When we thought Grandmamma out of hearing, we did laugh: and my Uncle
Charles, coming down, joined us,--which I am afraid neither he nor we
ought to have done.

"My mother's infinitely put out," said he. "Her snuff-box is empty: and
she never gave me my full name but twice before, that I remember. When
I am Charles Desborough, she is not pleased; when I am Mr Charles
Desborough, she is gravely annoyed; but when I become Mr Charles
Carlingford Desborough, matters are desperate indeed. I shall have to
go to the cost of a new snuff-box, I expect, before I get forgiven. Yet
I have no doubt Oliver was a pretty decent fellow--putting his politics
on one side."

"I am afraid, Uncle Charles," said Hatty, "a snuff-box would hardly make
your peace for that."

"Oh, that's for you maids, not for her. She is not a good forgiver,"
said my Uncle Charles, more gravely. "She takes after her mother, my
Lady Sophia. Don't I remember my Lady Sophia!"

And I should say, from the expression of my Uncle Charles's face, that
his recollections of my Lady Sophia Carlingford were not among the
pleasantest he had.

Hatty is growing much more like herself, with the pertness left out.
She looks a great deal better, and can smile and laugh now; but her old
sharp, bright ways are gone, and only show now and then, in a little
flash, what she was once.

The Crosslands have disappeared--nobody knows where. But I do not think
Miss Marianne Newton has broken her heart; indeed, I am not quite sure
that she has one.

In the afternoon, Ephraim came, and I went in a chair under his escort
to Mr Raymond's house. Hatty declined to come; she seemed to have a
dislike to go out of doors, further than just to take the air in the
squ