The family was away, and the housekeeper was busy getting ready for my lord and my lady who were expected that evening.  Harry wrote down his name on a paper from his own pocket and laid it on a table in the hall; and then walked away, not caring to own how disappointed he was.  No one had known him.  Had any of his relatives ridden up to his house in Virginia, whether the master were present or absent, the guests would have been made welcome.  Harry felt terribly alone.  The inn folks did not know the name of Warrington.  They told him before he went to bed that my lord Castlewood and his sister Lady Maria, and their stepmother the Countess, and her son Mr. William, had arrived at the Castle, and two hours later the Baroness Bernstein, my lord’s aunt.  Harry remembered that the Baroness Bernstein was his mother’s half-sister, for Colonel Esmond’s wife was the mother of Beatrice Bernstein who had married a German baron, after marrying Bishop Tusher.

The Castlewoods were for letting their young American kinsman stay at his inn, but Madam Bernstein, of whom all the family stood in awe, at once insisted that Harry Warrington should be sent for, and on his arrival made much of him.  As for the boy, he felt very grateful towards the lady who had received him so warmly.

Within six months Harry had fallen in love with Lady Maria, who was over forty.  He was wealthy and, thanks to Gumbo, his servant, the extent of his estate had been greatly magnified by that cheerfullest of negroes.  The Castlewoods professed themselves indifferent to the love-making that seemed to be going on between Harry and Maria, but Madam Bernstein was indignant.

“Do you remember,” she cried, with energy, “who the poor boy is, and what your house owes to its family?  His grandfather gave up this estate, this title, this very castle, that you and yours might profit by it.  And the reward for all this is that you talk of marrying him to a silly elderly creature, who might be his mother.  He shan’t marry her.”

So Madam Bernstein, having tired of Castlewood, decided that Maria must accompany her to Tunbridge Wells and Harry was invited to act as escort, and to stay a day or two at the Wells.  At the end of the first day’s travel, when they had just reached Farnham, poor Maria was ill, and her cheeks were yellow when she retired for the night.

“That absurd Maria!” says Madam Bernstein, playing piquet with Harry.  “She never had a good constitution.  I hope she intends to be well to-morrow morning.  She was forty-one years old.  All her upper teeth are false, and she can’t eat with them.  How clumsily you deal, child!”

The next morning Lady Maria’s indisposition was over, but Harry was wretched.  Then in the evening the horse Harry was riding, in the matter of which he had been cheated by his cousin Will, at Castlewood, came down on his knees and sent the rider over his head.  Mr. Harry was picked up insensible and carried home into a house called Oakhurst that stood hard by the road.