MR. DINGWELL, already much more like himself, having made the journey by easy stages, was approaching Malory by night, in a post-chaise. Fatigue, sickness, or some other cause, perhaps, exasperated his temper specially that night.

Well made up in mufflers, his head was frequently out at the window.

“The old church, by Jove!” he muttered, with a dismal grin, as going slowly down the jolty hill: beneath the ancient trees, the quaint little church of Llanderris and its quiet churchyard appeared at the left of the narrow road, white in the moonlight.

“A new crop of fools, fanatics, and hypocrites come up, since I remember them, and the old ones gone down to enrich that patch of ground and send up their dirty juice in nettles, and thistles, and docks. ‘In sure and certain hope.’ Why should not they, the swine! as well as their masters, cunning, and drunken, and sneaks. I’d like to pay a fellow to cut their epitaphs. Why should I spare them a line of truth. Here I am, plain Mr. Dingwell. They don’t care much about me; and when my Lord Verney went down the other day, to show them what a fool they have got for a master, amid congenial rejoicings, I don’t hear that they troubled their heads with many regrets for my poor friend Arthur. Ha! There’s the estuary, and Pendillion. These things don’t change, my Lord Verney. Pity Lord Verney doesn’t wear as well as Pendillion. There is Ware, over the water, if we had light to see it — to think of that shabby little whey-faced fool! Here we are; these are the trees of Malory, egad!”

And with a shrug he repeated Homer’s words, which say —“As are the generations of leaves, such are those of men.”

Up the avenue of Malory they were driving, and Dingwell looked out with a dismal curiosity upon the lightless front of the old house.

“Cheerful reception!” he muttered. “Suppose we pick a hole in your title — a hole in your pocket— hey!”

Dingwell’s servant was at the door of the steward’s house as they drew up, and helped the snarling old invalid down.

When he got to the room the servant said —

“There’s coffee, and everythink as you desired.”

“I’ll take breath first, if you please — coffee afterwards.”

“Mrs. Mervyn hopes, sir, as how you’ll parding her to-night, being so late, and not in good ‘ealth herself, which she would been hup to receive you hotherwise,” said the man, delivering his message eloquently.

“Quite time enough tomorrow, and tomorrow — and tomorrow; and I don’t care if our meeting creeps away, as that remarkable person, William Shakespeare, says —‘in this petty pace.’ This is more comfortable, egad! than Rosemary Court. I don’t care, I say, if it creeps in that pretty pace, till we are both in heaven. What’s Hecuba to me, or I to Hecuba? So help me off with these things.”

Lord Verney, on whom, in his moods, Mr. Dingwell commented so fully, was dispensing his hospitalities just then, on the other side of the estuary, at his princely mansion of Ware. The party was, it is true, small — very small, in fact. Lady Wimbledon had been there, and the Hon. Caroline Oldys, but they were now visiting Cardyllian at the Verney Arms.

Mr. Jos. Larkin, to his infinite content, was at Ware, and deplored the unchristian feelings displayed by Mr. Wynne Williams, whom he had by this time formally supplanted in the management of Lord Verney’s country affairs, and who had exhibited “a nasty feeling,” he “might say a petulance quite childish,” last Sunday, when Mr. Larkin had graced Cardyllian Church with his personal devotions, and refused to vacate, in his favour, the small pew which he held as proprietor of Plasdwllyn, but which Mr. Larkin chose to think he occupied in virtue of his former position of solicitor to Lord Verney.

Cleve Verney being still in London, received one morning from his uncle the following short and astounding note, as he sat at breakfast:—

“MY DEAR CLEVE— The time having arrived for taking that step, which the stability of our house of Verney has long appeared to demand, all preliminaries being satisfactorily adjusted, and the young lady and Lady Wimbledon, with a very small party of their relations, as you may have observed by the public papers, at present at the hotel of Cardyllian, nothing remains unaccomplished by way of preparation, but your presence at Ware, which I shall expect on Friday next, when you can meet Miss Caroline Oldys in those new and more defined relations which our contemplated alliance suggests. That event is arranged to take place on the Wednesday following. Mr. Larkin, who reports to me the substance of a conversation with you, and who has my instructions to apprise you fully of any details you may desire to be informed of, will see you on the morning of tomorrow, in the library at Verney House, at a quarter-past eleven o’clock. He leaves Ware by the mail train to-night. You will observe that the marriage, though not strictly private, is to be conducted without éclat, and has not been anywhere announced. This will explain my not inviting you to bring down any friend of yours to Ware for the occasion.”

So it ends with the noble lord’s signature, and a due attestation of the state of his affections towards Cleve.

With the end of his uncle’s letter, an end of that young gentleman’s breakfast — only just begun — came also.

Cleve did not start up and rap out an oath. On the contrary, he sat very still, with something, almost a smil............