ather borrowed these letters, and returning them to me, said, 'A
good soul! the best of women! There--there is a treasure lost!' His
forehead was clouded in speaking. He recommended me to assure my aunt
that she would never have to take a family interest in Miss Penrhys. But
this was not deemed perfectly satisfactory at Riversley. My aunt wrote:
'Am I to understand that you, Harry, raise objections to her? Think first
whether she is in herself objectionable. She is rich, she may be prudent,
she may be a forethoughtful person. She may not be able to support a
bitter shock of grief. She may be one who can help. She may not be one
whose heart will bear it. Put your own feelings aside, my dearest. Our
duties cannot ever be clear to us until we do. It is possible for
headstrong wilfulness and secret tenderness to go together. Think whether
she is capable of sacrifice before you compel her to it. Do not inflict
misery wantonly. One would like to see her. Harry, I brood on your
future; that is why I seem to you preternaturally anxious about you.'

She seemed to me preternaturally anxious about Miss Penrhys.

My father listened in silence to my flippant satire on women's letters.

He answered after a pause,

'Our Jorian says that women's letters must be read like anagrams. To put
it familiarly, they are like a child's field of hop-scotch. You may have
noticed the urchins at their game: a bit of tile, and a variety of
compartments to pass it through to the base, hopping. Or no, Richie,
pooh! 'tis an unworthy comparison, this hopscotch. I mean, laddie, they
write in zigzags; and so will you when your heart trumpets in your ear.
Tell her, tell that dear noble good woman--say, we are happy, you and I,
and alone, and shall be; and do me the favour--she loves you, my
son--address her sometimes--she has been it--call her "mother"; she will
like it she deserves--nothing shall supplant her!'

He lost his voice.

She sent me three hundred pounds; she must have supposed the occasion
pressing. Thus fortified against paternal improvidence, I expended a
hundred in the purchase of a horse, and staked the remainder on him in a
match, and was beaten. Disgusted with the horse, I sold him for half his
purchase-money, and with that sum paid a bill to maintain my father's
credit in the town. Figuratively speaking, I looked at my hands as
astonished as I had been when the poor little rascal in the street
snatched my cake, and gave me the vision