Mr. Prosper, with that kind of energy which was distinctively his own, had sent off his letter to Harry Annesley, with his postscript in it about his blighted matrimonial prospects,—a letter easy to be written,—before he had completed his grand epistle to Miss Thoroughbung. The epistle to Miss Thoroughbung was one requiring great consideration. It had to be studied in every word, and re-written again and again with the profoundest care. He was afraid that he might commit himself by an epithet. He dreaded even an adverb too much. He found that a full stop expressed his feelings too violently, and wrote the letter again, for the fifth time, because of the big initial which followed the full stop. The consequence of all this long delay was, that Miss Thoroughbung had heard the news, through the brewery, before it reached her in its legitimate course. Mr. Prosper had written his postscript by accident, and, in writing it, had forgotten the intercourse between his brother-in-law\'s house and the Buntingford people. He had known well of the proposed marriage; but he was a man who could not think of two things at the same time, and thus had committed the blunder.

Perhaps it was better for him as it was; and the blow came to him with a rapidity which created less of suffering than might have followed the slower mode of proceeding which he had intended. He was actually making the fifth copy of the letter, rendered necessary by that violent full stop, when Matthew came to him and announced that Miss Thoroughbung was in the drawing-room. "In the house!" ejaculated Mr. Prosper.

"She would come into the hall; and then where was I to put her?"

"Matthew Pike, you will not do for my service." This had been said about once every three months throughout the long course of years in which Matthew had lived with his master.

"Very well, sir. I am to take it for a month\'s warning, of course." Matthew understood well enough that this was merely an expression of his master\'s displeasure, and, being anxious for his master\'s welfare, knew that it was decorous that some decision should be come to at once as to Miss Thoroughbung, and that time should not be lost in his own little personal quarrel. "She is waiting, you know, sir, and she looks uncommon irascible. There is the other lady left outside in the carriage."

"Miss Tickle! Don\'t let her in, whatever you do. She is the worst. Oh dear! oh dear! Where are my coat and waistcoat, and my braces? And I haven\'t brushed my hair. And these slippers won\'t do. What business has she to come at this time of day, without saying a word to anybody?" Then Matthew went to work, and got his master into decent apparel, with as little delay as possible. "After all," said Mr. Prosper, "I don\'t think I\'ll see her. Why should I see her?"

"She knows you are at home, sir."

"Why does she know I\'m at home? That\'s your fault. She oughtn\'t to know anything about it. Oh dear! oh dear! oh dear!" These last ejaculations arose from his having just then remembered the nature of his postscript to Harry Annesley, and the engagement of Joe Thoroughbung to his niece. He made up his mind at the moment,—or thought that he had made up his mind,—that Harry Annesley should not have a shilling as long as he lived. "I am quite out of breath. I cannot see her yet. Go and offer the lady cake and wine, and tell her that you had found me very much indisposed. I think you will have to tell her that I am not well enough to receive her to-day."

"Get it over, sir, and have done with it."

"It\'s all very well to say have done with it. I shall never have done with it. Because you have let her in to-day she\'ll think that she can come always. Good Lord! There she is on the stairs! Pick up my slippers." Then the door was opened, and Miss Thoroughbung herself entered the room. It was an up-stairs chamber, known as Mr. Prosper\'s own: and from it was the door into his bedroom. How Miss Thoroughbung had learned her way to it he never could guess. But she had come up the stairs as though she had been acquainted with all the intricacies of the house from her childhood.

"Mr. Prosper," she said, "I hope I see you quite well this morning, and that I have not disturbed you at your toilet." That she had done so was evident, from the fact that Matthew, with the dressing-gown and slippers, was seen disappearing into the bedroom.

"I am not very well, thank you," said Mr. Prosper, rising from his chair, and offering her his hand with the coldest possible salutation.

"I am sorry for that,—very. I hope it is not your indisposition which has prevented you from coming to see me. I have been expecting you every day since Soames wrote his last letter. But it\'s no use pretending any longer. Oh, Peter, Peter!" This use of his Christian name struck him absolutely dumb, so that he was unable to utter a syllable. He should, first of all, have told her that any excuse she had before for calling him by his Christian name was now at an end. But there was no opening for speech such as that. "Well," she continued, "have you got nothing to say to me? You can write flippant letters to other people, and turn me into ridicule glibly enough."

"I have never done so."

"Did you not write to Joe Thoroughbung, and tell him you had given up all thoughts of having me?"

"Joe!" he exclaimed. His very surprise did not permit him to go farther, at the moment, than this utterance of the young man\'s Christian name.

"Yes, Joe,—Joe Thoroughbung, my nephew, and yours that is to be. Did you not write and tell him that everything was over?"

"I never wrote to young Mr. Thoroughbung in my life. I should not have dreamed of such a correspondence on such a subject."

"Well, he says you did. Or, if you didn\'t write to Joe himself, you wrote to somebody."

"I may have written to somebody, certainly."

"And told them that you didn\'t mean to have anything farther to say to me?" That traitor Harry had now committed a sin worse that knocking a man down in the middle of the night and leaving him bleeding, speechless, and motionless; worse than telling a lie about it;—worse even than declining to listen to sermons read by his uncle. Harry had committed such a sin that no shilling of allowance should evermore be paid to him. Even at this moment there went through Mr. Prosper\'s brain an idea that there might be some unmarried female in England besides Miss Puffle and Miss Thoroughbung. "Peter Prosper, why don\'t you answer like a man, and tell me the honest truth?" He had never before been called Peter Prosper in his whole life.

"Perhaps you had better let me make a communication by letter," he said. At that very moment the all but completed epistle was lying on the table before him, where even her eyes might reach it. In the flurry of the moment he covered it up.

"Perhaps that is the letter which has taken you so long to write?" she said.

"It is the letter."

"Then hand it me over, and save yourself the penny stamp." In his confusion he gave her the letter, and threw himself down on the sofa while she read it. "You have been very careful in choosing your language, Mr. Prosper: \'It will be expedient that I should make known to you the entire truth.\' Certainly, Mr. Prosper, certainly. The entire truth is the best thing,—next to entire beer, my brother would say." "The horrid vulgar woman!" Mr. Prosper ejaculated to himself. "\'There seems to have been a complete misunderstanding with regard to that amiable lady, Miss Tickle.\' No misunderstanding at all. You said you liked her, and I supposed you did. And when I had been living for twenty years with a female companion, who hasn\'t sixpence in the world to buy a rag with but what she gets from me, was it to be expected that I should turn her out for any man?"

"An annuity might have been arranged, Miss Thoroughbung."

"Bother an annuity! That\'s all you think about feelings! Was she to go and live alone and desolate because you wanted some one to nurse you? And then those wretched ponies. I tell you, Peter Prosper, that let me marry whom I will, I me............