“Sir Edward!” cried Mr. Haughton, with a laugh, “Baronets are likely to be plenty.  Have you heard how near we were to have another in the neighborhood lately?” Sir Edward answered in the negative, and his neighbor continued—­

“Why no less a man than Captain Jarvis, promoted to the bloody hand.”

“Captain Jarvis!” exclaimed five or six at once; “explain yourself, Mr. Haughton.”

“My near neighbor, young Walker, has been to Bath on an unusual business—­his health—­and for the benefit of the country he has brought back a pretty piece of scandal.  It seems that Lady Jarvis, as I am told she is since she left here, wished to have her hopeful heir made a lord, and that the two united for some six months in forming a kind of savings’ bank between themselves, to enable them at some future day to bribe the minister to honor the peerage with such a prodigy.  After awhile the daughter of our late acquaintance, Sir William Harris, became an accessory to the plot, and a contributor too, to the tune of a couple of hundred pounds.  Some circumstances, however, at length made this latter lady suspicious, and she wished to audit the books The Captain prevaricated—­the lady remonstrated, until the gentleman, with more truth than manners, told her that she was a fool—­the money he had expended or lost at dice; and that he did not think the ministers quite so silly as to make him a lord, or that he himself was such a fool as to make her his wife; so the whole thing exploded.”

John listened with a delight but little short of what he had felt when Grace owned her love, and anxious to know all, eagerly inquired—­

“But, is it true? how was it found out?”

“Oh, the lady complained of part, and the Captain tells all to get the laugh on his side; so that Walker says the former is the derision and the latter the contempt of all Bath.”

“Poor Sir William,” said the baronet, with feeling; “he is much to be pitied.”

“I am afraid he has nothing to blame but his own indulgence,” remarked the rector.

“You don’t know the worst of it,” replied Mr. Haughton.  “We poor people are made to suffer—­Lady Jarvis wept and fretted Sir Time out of his lease, which has been given up, and a new house is to be taken in another part of the kingdom, where neither Miss Harris nor the story is known.”

“Then Sir William has to procure a new tenant,” said Lady Moseley, not in the least regretting the loss of the old one.

“No! my lady!” continued Mr. Haughton, with a smile.  “Walker is, you know, an attorney, and does some business occasionally for Sir William.  When Jarvis gave up the lease, the baronet, who finds himself a little short of money, offered the deanery for sale, it being a useless place to him; and the very next day, while Walker was with Sir William, a gentleman called, and without higgling agreed to pay down at once his thirty thousand pounds for it.”