The vehicle thus mentioned was an old stager which passed through Westbourne daily, carrying passengers to sundry of the unrailwayed towns on its track; and within two hours from the receipt of the invitation Mr Phipps Bunting, well wrapped up, and better warned against taking cold, with his best things in a carpet bag and his lady’s commands delivered to the mason, took possession of an inside seat on his way to Charles Lacy’s domicile.

How the bachelors’ party proceeded in that locality, and how the failings of the parlour chimney were corrected at the cottage, imaginative readers may suppose; but on the third day after Harry’s departure there arrived a note, stating that his host had invited him to remain a fortnight that they were to have shooting in the fine frosty weather he thought he might stay.  Mrs. Phipps Bunting sent her approbation by return of post.  There was a colony of rats to be expatriated, a clearing out of the coal cellar to be achieved, and a bottling of cider to get forward, under which considerations she concluded he was better out of the way; but all these things were accomplished, and more than the specified time elapsed, when another note came to say that Lacy positively would not let Harry home without seeing his uncle, the great barrister, who lived in the nearest assize town; and the legal protector of Miss Jenny ’thought he might go on that visit.’

There was a graver and more lengthy reply to that communication; but the fates forbade that Harry should read Mrs Bunting’s in time.  Charles Lacy’s housekeeper had a standing-order to put all letters into a huge card-bracket, which that young gentleman affirmed had been presented to him by an heiress of L.20,000 in her own right; and Mrs Bunting’s epistle was placed in the receptacle—­for before its arrival Harry had, like an undutiful husband, started with Charles for the house of his uncle.  The old barrister, though not one of the brightest, was among the successful of his profession, and kept a hospitable, easy-going house, with a maiden sister and two dashing nephews, in a comfortable English country town, at one end of which was a railway station for the coming and going of London trains.  Our Harry had been always an agreeable, commodious fellow.  There were no angles on his temper to come in contact with those of other people:  rich uncle, maiden aunt, and sporting nephews, all joined in requesting his stay from week to week; while three successive notes were in turn committed to the card-bracket on Charles Lacy’s mantelpiece.

‘Harry, my boy,’ said that gay gentleman, as they stood looking at a passing train, ’what do you say to a run for London?  I have another uncle there—­a first-rate solicitor in the firm of Grindley, Blackmore, & Co.  Ours is a legal family.  Grindley and the old hen would be glad to see us; and I’ll introduce you to the Blackmores, a delightful mother and four daughters; all charming girls with three thousand a piece.  I wish you could only hear Clementina Blackmore sing Will you still be true to me? Harry, if ever I am so left to myself as to think of marrying, that’s the girl!’