“He has thought of that, Harry.”

“How thought of it, mother?”

“He has given orders that he is not to see you.”

“Not to see me!”

“So he declares.  He has written a long letter to your father, in which he says that he would be spared the agony of an interview.”

“What! is it all done, then?”

“Your father got the letter yesterday.  It must have taken my poor brother a week to write it.”

“And he tells the whole plan,—­Matilda Thoroughbung, and the future family?”

“No, he does not say anything about Miss Thoroughbung He says that he must make other arrangements about the property.”

“He can’t make other arrangements; that is, not until the boy is born.  It may be a long time first, you know.”

“But the jointure?”

“What does Molly say about it?”

“Molly is mad about it and so is Joshua.  Joshua talks about it just as though he were one of us, and he says that the old people at Buntingford would not hear of it.”  The old people spoken of were the father and mother of Joshua, and the half-brother of Miss Matilda Thoroughbung.  “But what can they do?”

“They can do nothing.  If Miss Matilda likes Uncle Prosper—­”

“Likes, my dear!  How young you are!  Of course she would like a country house to live in, and the park, and the county society.  And she would like somebody to live with besides Miss Tickle.”

“My uncle, for instance.”

“Yes, your uncle.”

“If I had my choice, mother, I should prefer Miss Tickle.”

“Because you are a silly boy.  But what are you to do now?”

“In this long letter which he has written to my father does he give no reason?”

“Your father will show you the letter.  Of course he gives reasons.  He says that you have done something which you ought not to have done—­about that wretched Mountjoy Scarborough.”

“What does he know about it?—­the idiot!”

“Oh, Harry!”

“Well, mother, what better can I say of him?  He has taken me as a child and fashioned my life for me; has said that this property should be mine, and has put an income into my hand as though I were an eldest son; has repeatedly declared, when his voice was more potent than mine, that I should follow no profession.  He has bound himself to me, telling all the world that I was his heir.  And now he casts me out because he has heard some cock-and-bull story, of the truth of which he knows nothing.  What better can I say of him than call him an idiot?  He must be that or else a heartless knave.  And he says that he does not mean to see me,—­me with whose life he has thus been empowered to interfere, so as to blast it if not to bless it, and intends to turn me adrift as he might do a dog that did not suit him!  And because he knows that he cannot answer me he declares that he will not see me.”

“It is very hard, Harry.”