loved by the inhabitants. Lord Erith, Lord
Rosherville's heir, considered his cousin a low person, of deplorably
vulgar habits and manners; while Foker, and with equal reason, voted
Erith a prig and a dullard, the nightcap of the House of Commons, the
Speaker's opprobrium, the dreariest of philanthropic spouters. Nor could
George Robert, Earl of Gravesend and Rosherville, ever forget that on
one evening when he condescended to play at billiards with his nephew,
that young gentleman poked his lordship in the side with his cue, and
said, "Well, old cock, I've seen many a bad stroke in my life, but I
never saw such a bad one as that there." He played the game out with
angelic sweetness of temper, for Harry was his guest as well as his
nephew; but he was nearly having a fit in the night; and he kept to
his own rooms until young Harry quitted Drummington on his return to
Oxbridge, where the interesting youth was finishing his education at
the time when the occurrence took place. It was an awful blow to the
venerable earl; the circumstance was never alluded to in the family; he
shunned Foker whenever he came to see them in London or in the country,
and could hardly be brought to gasp out a "How d'ye do?" to the
young blasphemer. But he would not break his sister Agnes's heart, by
banishing Harry from the family altogether; nor, indeed, could he afford
to break with Mr. Foker, senior, between whom and his lordship there had
been many private transactions, producing an exchange of bank-cheques
from Mr. Foker, and autographs from the earl himself, with the letters I
O U written over his illustrious signature.

Besides the four daughters of Lord Gravesend whose various qualities
have been enumerated in the former paragraph, his lordship was blessed
with a fifth girl, the Lady Ana Milton, who, from her earliest years
and nursery, had been destined to a peculiar position in life. It was
ordained between her parents and her aunt, that when Mr Harry Foker
attained a proper age, Lady Ann should become his wife. The idea had
been familiar to her mind when she yet wore pinafores, and when Harry
the dirtiest of little boys, used to come back with black eyes from
school to Drummington, or to his father's house of Logwood, where Lady
Ann lived, much with her aunt. Both of the young people coincided
with the arrangement proposed by the elders, without any protests or
difficulty. It no more entered Lady Ann's mind to question the order of
he