Harry Annesley received Mr. Scarborough’s letter down at Buston, and was much surprised by it.  He had not spent the winter hitherto very pleasantly.  His uncle he had never seen, though he had heard from day to day sundry stories of his wooing.  He had soon given up his hunting, feeling himself ashamed, in his present nameless position, to ride Joshua Thoroughbung’s horses.  He had taken to hard reading, but the hard reading had failed, and he had been given up to the miseries of his position.  The hard reading had been continued for a fortnight or three weeks, during which he had, at any rate, respected himself, but in an evil hour he had allowed it to escape from him, and now was again miserable.  Then the invitation from Tretton had been received.  “I have got a letter; ’tis from Mr. Scarborough of Tretton.”

“What does Mr. Scarborough say?”

“He wants me to go down there.”

“Do you know Mr. Scarborough?  I believe you have altogether quarrelled with his son?”

“Oh yes; I have quarrelled with Augustus, and have had an encounter with Mountjoy not on the most friendly terms.  But the father and Mountjoy seem to be reconciled.  You can see his letter.  I, at any rate, shall go there.”  To this Mr. Annesley senior had no objection to make.

CHAPTER XL.

VISITORS AT TRETTON.

It so happened that the three visitors who had been asked to Tretton all agreed to go on the same day.  There was, indeed, no reason why Harry should delay his visit, and much why the other two should expedite theirs.  Mr. Grey knew that the thing, if done at all, should be done at once; and Mountjoy, as he had agreed to accept his father’s offer, could not put himself too quickly under the shelter of his father’s roof.  “You can have twenty pounds,” Mr. Grey had said when the subject of the money was mooted.  “Will that suffice?” Mountjoy had said that it would suffice amply, and then, returning to his brother’s rooms, had waited there with what patience he possessed till he sallied forth to The Continental to get the best dinner which that restaurant could afford him.  He was beginning to feel that his life was very sad in London, and to look forward to the glades of Tretton with some anticipation of rural delight.

He went down by the same train with Mr. Grey,—­“a great grind,” as Mountjoy called it, when Mr. Grey proposed a departure at ten o’clock.  Harry followed so as to reach Tretton only in time for dinner.  “If I may venture to advise you,” said Mr. Grey in the train, “I should do in this matter whatever my father asked me.”  Hereupon Mountjoy frowned.  “He is anxious to make some provision for you.”

“I’m not grateful to my father, if you mean that.”

“It is hard to say whether you should be grateful.  But, from the first, he has done the best he could for you, according to his lights.”

“You believe all this about my mother?”