It was at the beginning of Lynde’s last term at college that his uncle retired from business, bought a house in Madison Avenue, and turned it into a sort of palace with frescoes and upholstery.  There was a library for my boy Ned, a smoking-room in cherry-wood, a billiard-room in black walnut, a dining-room in oak and crimson—­in brief, the beau-ideal of a den for a couple of bachelors.  By Jove! it was like a club-house—­the only model for a home of which poor old Lynde had any conception.  Six months before Ned was graduated, the establishment was in systematic running order under the supervision of the pearl of housekeepers.  Here David Lynde proposed to spend the rest of his days with his nephew, who might, for form’s sake, adopt some genteel profession; if not, well and good, the boy would have money.

Now just as Ned was carrying off the first prizes in Greek and mathematics, and dreaming of the pleasant life he was to lead with his amiable old benefactor, what does that amiable old benefactor go and do but marry the housekeeper!

David Lynde knew very little of women:  he had not spoken to above a dozen in his whole life; did not like them, in fact; had a mild sort of contempt for them, as persons devoid of business ability.  It was in the course of nature that the first woman who thought it worth her while should twist him around her finger like a remnant of ribbon.  When Ned came out of college he found himself in the arms of an unlooked-for aunt who naturally hated him at sight.

I have not the time or space, my dear uncle, to give you even a catalogue of the miseries that followed on the heels of this deplorable marriage; besides, you can imagine them.  Old Lynde, loving both his wife and his nephew, was by turns violent and feeble; the wife cool, cunning, and insidious—­a Vivien of forty leading Merlin by the beard.  I am not prepared to contend that the nephew was always in the right, but I know he always got the worst of it, which amounts to about the same thing.  At the end of eight or ten months he saw that the position was untenable, packed his trunk one night, and quitted the MENAGE—­the menagerie, as he calls it.

This was three weeks ago.  Having a small property of his own, some fifteen hundred dollars a year, I believe, Lynde at first thought to go abroad.  It was always his dream to go abroad.  But I persuaded him out of that, seeing how perilous it would be for a young fellow of his inexperience and impressible disposition to go rambling alone over the Continent.  Paris was his idea.  Paris would not make a mouthful of him.  I have talked him out of that, I repeat, and have succeeded in convincing him that the wisest course for him to pursue is to go to some pleasant town or village within hailing distance of one of our larger cities, and spend the summer quietly.  I even suggested he should make the personal acquaintance of some light employment, to help him forget the gorgeous castle of cards which has just tumbled down about his ears.  In six words, I have sent him to Rivermouth.