Railway Hotel, Carlisle,
   December 27, 186—.

   MY LORD,

I am now on my way from Loughlinter to London, and write this letter to you in compliance with a promise made by me to my sister and to Miss Effingham.  I have asked Violet to be my wife, and she has accepted me, and they think that you will be pleased to hear that this has been done.  I shall be, of course, obliged, if you will instruct Mr. Edwards to let me know what you would propose to do in regard to settlements.  Laura thinks that you will wish to see both Violet and myself at Saulsby.  For myself, I can only say that, should you desire me to come, I will do so on receiving your assurance that I shall be treated neither with fatted calves nor with reproaches.  I am not aware that I have deserved either.

   I am, my lord, yours affect.,

   CHILTERN.

   P.S.—­My address will be “The Bull, Willingford.”

That last word, in which he half-declared himself to be joined in affectionate relations to his father, caused him a world of trouble.  But he could find no term for expressing, without a circumlocution which was disagreeable to him, exactly that position of feeling towards his father which really belonged to him.  He would have written “yours with affection,” or “yours with deadly enmity,” or “yours with respect,” or “yours with most profound indifference,” exactly in accordance with the state of his father’s mind, if he had only known what was that state.  He was afraid of going beyond his father in any offer of reconciliation, and was firmly fixed in his resolution that he would never be either repentant or submissive in regard to the past.  If his father had wishes for the future, he would comply with them if he could do so without unreasonable inconvenience, but he would not give way a single point as to things done and gone.  If his father should choose to make any reference to them, his father must prepare for battle.

The Earl was of course disgusted by the pertinacious obstinacy of his son’s letter, and for an hour or two swore to himself that he would not answer it.  But it is natural that the father should yearn for the son, while the son’s feeling for the father is of a very much weaker nature.  Here, at any rate, was that engagement made which he had ever desired.  And his son had made a step, though it was so very unsatisfactory a step, towards reconciliation.  When the old man read the letter a second time, he skipped that reference to fatted calves which had been so peculiarly distasteful to him, and before the evening had passed he had answered his son as follows;—­

   Saulsby, December 29, 186—.

   MY DEAR CHILTERN,