the ghost story had melted into mist, he had
flung aside all those uneasy doubts which had disturbed his first weeks
of possession.

He soon surrounded himself with the luxury that was so congenial to him.
All the neighbourhood called on him, and his naturally sociable temper,
amiable, domestic ways, and good position enabled him, with hardly any
effort, to be always among a posse of people who suited him perfectly.

There were more ladies than young men in the neighbourhood. Valentine
was intimate with half-a-dozen of the former before he had been among
them three weeks. He experienced the delights of feminine flattery, a
thing almost new to him. Who so likely to receive it? He was eligible,
he was handsome, and he was always in a good humour, for the place and
the life pleased him, and all things smiled.

In a round of country gaieties, in which picnics and archery parties
bore a far larger proportion than any young man would have cared for who
was less devoted to the other sex, Valentine passed much of his time,
laughing and making laugh wherever he went. His jokes were bandied about
from house to house, till he felt the drawback in passing for a wit. He
was expected to be always funny.

But a little real fun goes a long way in a dull neighbourhood, and he
had learned just so much caution from his early escapade as to be
willing to hail any view concerning himself that might be a corrective
of the more true and likely one that he loved to flirt.

He was quite determined, as he thought, not to get into another scrape,
and perhaps a very decided intention to make, in the end, an
advantageous marriage, may have grown out of the fancy that his romance
in life was over.

If he thought so, it was in no very consistent fashion, for he was
always the slave (for the day) of the prettiest girl in every party he
went to.

It was on a Saturday that John Mortimer received his son's proposal for
retrenchment; on the Wednesday succeeding it Valentine, sitting at
breakfast at Melcombe, opened the following letter, and was amused by
the old-fashioned formality of its opening sentence:--

"Wigfield, June 15th, 18--.

"My dear Nephew,--It is not often that I take up my pen to address you,
for I know there is little need, as my niece Emily writes weekly.
Frequently have I wondered what she could find to write for; indeed, it
was not the way in my youth for people to waste so much time saying
little or nothing--which is not my