After this, Lady Mountjoy did succeed in getting Florence alone with herself into her morning-room.  When her mother told her that her aunt wished to see her, she answered first that she had no special wish to see her aunt.  Her mother declared that in her aunt’s house she was bound to go when her aunt sent for her.  To this Florence demurred.  She was, she thought, her aunt’s guest, but by no means at her aunt’s disposal.  But at last she obeyed her mother.  She had resolved that she would obey her mother in all things but one, and therefore she went one morning to her aunt’s chamber.

But as she went she was, on the first instance, caught by her uncle, and taken by him into a little private sanctum behind his official room.  “My dear,” he said, “just come in here for two minutes.”

“I am on my way up to my aunt.”

“I know it, my dear.  Lady Mountjoy has been talking it all over with me.  Upon my word you can’t do anything better than take young Anderson.”

“I can’t do that, Uncle Magnus.”

“Why not?  There’s poor Mountjoy Scarborough, he has gone astray.”

“There is no question of my cousin.”

“And Augustus is no better.”

“There is no question of Augustus either.”

“As to that other chap, he isn’t any good;—­he isn’t indeed.”

“You mean Mr. Annesley?”

“Yes; Harry Annesley, as you call him.  He hasn’t got a shilling to bless himself with, or wouldn’t have if he was to marry you.”

“But I have got something.”

“Not enough for both of you, I’m afraid.  That uncle of his has disinherited him.”

“His uncle can’t disinherit him.”

“He’s quite young enough to marry and have a family, and then Annesley will be disinherited.  He has stopped his allowance, anyway, and you mustn’t think of him.  He did something uncommonly unhandsome the other day, though I don’t quite know what.”

“He did nothing unhandsome, Uncle Magnus.”

“Of course a young lady will stand up for her lover, but you will really have to drop him.  I’m not a hard sort of man, but this was something that the world will not stand.  When he thought the man had been murdered he didn’t say anything about it for fear they should tax him with it.  And then he swore he had never seen him.  It was something of that sort.”

“He never feared that any one would suspect him.”

“And now young Anderson has proposed.  I should not have spoken else, but it’s my duty to tell you about young Anderson.  He’s a gentleman all round.”

“So is Mr. Annesley.”

“And Anderson has got into no trouble at all.  He does his duty here uncommonly well.  I never had less trouble with any young fellow than I have had with him.  No licking him into shape,—­or next to none,—­and he has a very nice private income.  You together would have plenty, and could live here till you had settled on apartments.  A pair of ponies would be just the thing for you to drive about and support the British interests.  You think of it, my dear, and you’ll find that I’m right.”  Then Florence escaped from that room and went up to receive the much more severe lecture which she was to have from her aunt.