“MY DEAR NEPHEW, HENRY ANNESLEY,—­

“Under existing circumstances you will, I think, be surprised at a letter written in my handwriting; but facts have arisen which make it expedient that I should address you.

“You are about, I am informed, to proceed to the United States, a country against which I acknowledge I entertain a serious antipathy.  They are not a gentlemanlike people, and I am given to understand that they are generally dishonest in all their dealings.  Their President is a low person, and all their ideas of government are pettifogging.  Their ladies, I am told, are very vulgar, though I have never had the pleasure of knowing one of them.  They are an irreligious nation, and have no respect for the Established Church of England and her bishops.  I should be very sorry that my heir should go among them.

“With reference to my stopping the income which I have hitherto allowed you, it was a step I took upon the best advice, nor can I allow it to be thought that there is any legal claim upon me for a continuance of the payment.  But I am willing for the present to continue it, on the full understanding that you at once give up your American project.

“But there is a subject on which it is essentially necessary that I should receive from you, as my heir, a full and complete explanation.  Under what circumstances did you beat Captain Scarborough in the streets late on the night of the 3d of June last?  And how did it come to pass that you left him bleeding, speechless, and motionless on that occasion?

“As I am about to continue the payment of the sum hitherto allowed, I think it only fitting that I should receive this explanation under your own hand.—­I am your affectionate uncle,

“PETER PROSPER.

“P.S.—­A rumor may probably have reached you of a projected alliance between me and a young lady belonging to a family with which your sister is about to connect herself.  It is right that I should tell you that there is no truth in this report.”

This letter, which was much easier to write than the one intended for Miss Thoroughbung, was unfortunately sent off a little before the completion of the other.  A day’s interval had been intended.  But the missive to Miss Thoroughbung was, under the press of difficulties, delayed longer than was intended.

There was, we grieve to say, much of joy but more of laughter at the rectory when this letter was received.  As usual, Joe Thoroughbung was there, and it was found impossible to keep the letter from him.  The postscript burst upon them all as a surprise, and was welcomed by no one with more vociferous joy than by the lady’s nephew.  “So there is an end forever to the hope that a child of the Buntingford Brewery should sit upon the throne of the Prospers.”  It was thus that Joe expressed himself.

“Why shouldn’t he have sat there?” said Polly.  “A Thoroughbung is as good as a Prosper any day.”  But this was not said in the presence of Mrs. Annesley, who on that subject entertained views very different from her daughter.