. Take
her Miles's letter."

The two young men glanced at one another in dismay, and the elder
said, "Wouldn't nurse do better?"

"No, no, Frank," said the younger, catching a distressed look on
their mother's face, "I'll look up Miles's little African. I've
rather a curiosity that way. Only don't let them start the bells
under the impression that we are a pair of the victims. If so, I
shall bolt."

"Julius must be the nearest bolting," said Frank. "How he
accomplished it passes my comprehension. I shall not believe in it
till I see him. There, then, I'll give orders. Barouche for the
squire, van for the rector, and the rattling fly for the sailor's
wife. So wags the course of human life," chanted Frank Charnock, as
he strolled out of the room.

"Thanks, Charlie," whispered his mother. "I am grieved for that
poor young thing. I wish I could go myself. And, Charlie, would
you cast an eye round, and see how things look in their rooms? You
have always been my daughter."

"Ah! my vocation is gone! Three in one day! I wonder which is the
best of the lot. I bet upon Miles's Cape Gooseberry.--Tired, mother
darling? Shall I send in nurse? I must be off, if I am to catch
the 12.30 train."

He bent to kiss the face, which was too delicately shaped and tinted
to look old enough to be in expectation of three daughters-in-law.
No, prostrate as she was upon pillows, Mrs. Charnock Poynsett did
not look as if she had attained fifty years. She was lady of
Compton Poynsett in her own right; and had been so early married and
widowed, as to have been the most efficient parental influence her
five sons had ever known; and their beautiful young mother had been
the object of their adoration from the nursery upwards, so that she
laughed at people who talked of the trouble and anxiety of rearing
sons.

They had all taken their cue from their senior, who had always been
more to his mother than all the world besides. For several years,
he being as old of his age as she was young, Mr. and Mrs. Charnock
Poynsett, with scarcely eighteen years between their ages, had often
been taken by strangers for husband and wife rather than son and
mother. And though she knew she ought to wish for his marriage, she
could not but be secretly relieved that there were no symptoms of
any such went impending.

At last, during the first spring after Raymond Charnock Poynsett,
Esquire, had been elected member for the little borough of