While these things were going on at Tretton, and while Mr. Scarborough was making all arrangements for the adequate disposition of his property,—in doing which he had happily come to the conclusion that there was no necessity for interfering with what the law had settled,—Mr. Prosper was lying very ill at Buston, and was endeavoring on his sick-bed to reconcile himself to what the entail had done for him. There could be no other heir to him but Harry Annesley. As he thought of the unmarried ladies of his acquaintance, he found that there was no one who would have done for him but Miss Puffle and Matilda Thoroughbung. All others were too young or too old, or chiefly penniless. Miss Puffle would have been the exact thing—only for that intruding farmer\'s son.

As he lay there alone in his bedroom his mind used to wander a little, and he would send for Matthew, his butler, and hold confidential discussions with him. "I never did think, sir, that Miss Thoroughbung was exactly the lady," said Matthew.

"Why not?"

"Well, sir, there is a saying—But you\'ll excuse me."

"Go on, Matthew."

"There is a saying as how \'you can\'t make a silk purse out of a sow\'s ear.\'"

"I\'ve heard that."

"Just so, sir. Now, Miss Thoroughbung is a very nice lady."

"I don\'t think she\'s a nice lady at all."

"But—Of course it\'s not becoming in me to speak against my betters, and as a menial servant I never would."

"Go on, Matthew."

"Miss Thoroughbung is—"

"Go on, Matthew."

"Well;—she is a sow\'s ear. Ain\'t she, now? The servants here never would have looked upon her as a silk purse."

"Wouldn\'t they?"

"Never! She has a way with her just as though she didn\'t care for silk purses. And it\'s my mind, sir, that she don\'t. She wishes, however, to be uppermost, and if she had come here she\'d have said so."

"That can never be. Thank God, that can never be!"

"Oh, no! Brewers is brewers, and must be. There\'s Mr. Joe—He\'s very well, no doubt."

"I haven\'t the pleasure of his acquaintance."

"Him as is to marry Miss Molly. But Miss Molly ain\'t the head of the family; is she, sir?" Here the squire shook his head. "You\'re the head of the family, sir."

"I suppose so."

"And is—I might make so bold as to speak?"

"Go on, Matthew."

"Miss Thoroughbung would be a little out of place at Buston Hall. Now, as to Miss Puffle—"

"Miss Puffle is a lady,—or was."

"No doubt, sir. The Puffles is not quite equal to the Prospers, as I can hear. But the Puffles is ladies—and gentlemen. The servants below all give it up to them that they\'re real gentlefolk. But—"

"Well?"

"She demeaned herself terribly with young Tazlehurst. They all said as there were more where that came from."

"What should they mean by that?"

"She\'d indulge in low \'abits,—such as never would have been put up with at Buston Hall,—a-cursing and a-swearing—"

"Miss Puffle!"

"Not herself,—I don\'t say that; but it\'s like enough if you \'ad heard all. But them as lets others do it almost does it themselves. And them as lets others drink sperrrits o\' mornings come nigh to having a dram down their own throats."

"Oh laws!" exclaimed Mr. Prosper, thinking of the escape he had had.

"You wouldn\'t have liked it, sir, if there had been a bottle of gin in the bedroom!" Here Mr. Prosper hid his face among the bedclothes. "It ain\'t all that comes silk out of the skein that does to make a purse of."

There were difficulties in the pursuit of matrimony of which Mr. Prosper had not thought. His imagination at once pictured to himself a bride with a bottle of gin under her pillow, and he went on shivering till Matthew almost thought that he had been attacked by an ague-fit.

"I shall give it up, at any rate," he said, after a pause.

"Of course you\'re a young man, sir."

"No, I\'m not."

"That is, not exactly young,"

"You\'re an old fool to tell such lies!"

"Of course I\'m an old fool; but I endeavor to be veracious. I never didn\'t take a shilling as were yours, nor a shilling\'s worth, all the years I have known you, Mr. Prosper."

"What has that to do with it? I\'m not a young man."

"What am I to say, sir? Shall I say as you are middle-aged?"

"The truth is, Matthew, I\'m worn out."

"Then I wouldn\'t think of taking a wife."

"Troubles have been too heavy for me to bear. I don\'t think I was intended to bear trouble."

"\'Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward,\'" said Matthew.

"I suppose so. But one man\'s luck is harder than another\'s. They\'ve been too many for me, and I feel that I\'m sinking under them. It\'s no good my thinking of marrying now."

"That\'s what I was coming to when you said I was an old fool. Of course I am an old fool."

"Do have done with it! Mr. Harry hasn\'t been exactly what he ought to have been to me."

"He\'s a very comely young gentleman."

"What has comely to do with it?"

"Them as is plain-featured is more likely to stay at home and be quiet. You couldn\'t expect one as is so handsome to stay at Buston and hear sermons."

"I don\'t expect him to be knocking men about in the streets at midnight."

"It ain\'t that, sir."

"I say it is that!"

"Very well, sir. Only we\'ve all heard down-stairs as Mr. Harry wasn\'t him as struck the first blow. It was all about a young lady."

"I know what it was about."

"A young lady as is a young lady."—This was felt to the quick by Mr. Prosper, in regard to the gin-drinking Miss Puffle and the brewer-bred Miss Thoroughbung; but as he was beginning to think that the continuation of the family of the Prospers must depend on the marriage which Harry might make, he passed over the slur upon himself for the sake of the praise given to the future mother of the Prospers.—"And when a young gentleman has set his heart on a young lady he\'s not going to be braggydoshoed out of it."

"Captain Scarborough knew her first."

"First come first served isn\'t always the way with lovers. Mr. Harry was the conquering hero. \'Weni, widi, wici.\'"

"Halloo, Matthew!"

"Them\'s the words as they say a young gentleman ought to use when he\'s got the better of a young lady\'s affections; and I dare say they\'re the very words as put the captain into such a towering passion. I can understand how it happened, just as if I saw it."

"But he went away, and left him bleeding and speechless."

"He\'d knocked his weni, widi, wici out of him, I guess! I think, Mr. Prosper, you should forgive him." Mr. Prosper had thought so too, but had hardly known how to express himself after his second burst of anger. But he was at the present ill and weak, and was anxious to have some one near to him who should be more like a silk purse than his butler, Matthew. "Suppose you was to send for him, sir."

"He wouldn\'t come."

"Let him alone for coming! They tell me, sir—"

"Who tells you?"

"Why, sir, the servants now at the rectory. Of course, sir, where two families is so near connected, the servants are just as near: it\'s no more than natural. They tell me now that since you were so kind about the allowance, their talk of you is all changed." Then the squire\'s anger was heated hot again. Their talk had all been against him till he had opened his hand in regard to the allowance. And now when there was something again to be got they could be civil. There was none of that love of him for himself for which an old man is always hankering,—for which the sick man breaks his heart,—but which the old and sick find it so difficult to get from the young and healthy. It is in nature that the old man should keep the purse in his own pocket, or otherwise he will have so little to attract. He is weak, querulous, ugly to look at, apt to be greedy, cross, and untidy. Though he himself can love, what is his love to any one? Duty demands that one shall smooth his pillow, and some one does smooth it,—as a duty. But the old man feels the difference, and remembers the time when there was one who was anxious to share it.

Mr. Prosper was not in years an old man, and had not as yet passed that time of life at which many a man is regarded by his children as the best of their playfellows. But he was weak in body, self-conscious, and jealous in spirit. He had the heart to lay out for himself a generous line of conduct, but not the purpose to stick to it steadily. His nephew had ever been a trouble to him, because he had expected from his nephew a kind of worship to which he had felt that he was entitled as the head of the family. All good things were to come from him, and therefore good things should be given to him. Harry had told himself that his uncle was not his father, and that it had not been his fault that he was his uncle\'s heir. He had not asked his uncle for an allowance. He had grown up with the feeling that Buston Hall was to be his own, and had not regarded his uncle as the donor. His father, with his large family, had never exacted much,—had wanted no special attention from him. And if not his father, then why his uncle? But his inattention, his absence of gratitude for peculiar gifts, had sunk deep into Mr. Prosper\'s bosom. Hence had come Miss Thoroughbung as his last resource, and Miss Thoroughbung had—called him Peter. Hence his mind had wandered to Miss Puffle, and Miss Puffle had gone off with the farmer\'s son, and, as he was now informed, had taken to drinking gin. Therefore he turned his face to the wall and prepared himself to die.

On the next day he sent for Matthew again. Matthew first came to him always in the morning, but on that occasion very little conversation ever took place. In the middle of the day he had a bowl of soup brought to him, and by that time had managed to d............