uel disappointment, he had to fold, put into an envelope
and direct this most misleading letter under the Doctor's superintending
eye, which of course allowed him no chance of introducing a line or even
a word to counteract the tone of self-satisfaction and contentment which
breathed in every sentence of it.

He saw it stamped, and put into the postbag, and then his last gleam of
hope flickered out; he must give up struggling against the Inevitable;
he must resign himself to be educated, and perhaps flogged here, while
Dick was filling his house with clowns and pantaloons, destroying his
reputation and damaging his credit at home. Perhaps, in course of time,
he would grow accustomed to it, and, meanwhile, he would be as careful
as possible to do and say nothing to make himself remarkable in any way,
by which means he trusted, at least, to avoid any fresh calamity.

And with this resolution he went to bed on Saturday night, feeling that
this was a dreary finish to a most unpleasant week.

11. _A Day of Rest_

"There was a letter indeed to be intercepted by a man's father to
do him good with him!"--_Every Man in his Humour._

"I cannot lose the thought yet of this letter,
Sent to my son; nor leave t' admire the change
Of manners, and the breeding of our youth
Within the kingdom, since myself was one."--_Ibid._

Sunday came--a day which was to begin a new week for Mr. Bultitude, and,
of course, for the rest of the Christian world as well. Whether that
week would be better or worse than the one which had just passed away he
naturally could not tell--it could hardly be much worse.

But the Sunday itself, he anticipated, without, however, any very firm
grounds for such an assumption, would be a day of brief but grateful
respite; a day on which he might venture to claim much the same immunity
as was enjoyed in former days by the insolvent; a day, in short, which
would glide slowly by with the rather drowsy solemnity peculiar to the
British sabbath as observed by all truly respectable persons.

And yet that very Sunday, could he have foreseen it, was destined to be
the most eventful day he had yet spent at Crichton House, where none had
proved wanting in incident. During the next twelve hours he was to pass
through every variety of unpleasant sensation. Embarrassment, suspense,
fear, anxiety, dismay, and terror were to follow each other in rapid
succession, and to wind up, strange