conscienceless young chief, the staggering nature of the
act he had put his hand to, its awful felonious aspect, overwhelmed
Ripton. He saw it now for the first time. "Why, it's next to murder!" he
cried out to his amazed soul, and wandered about the house with a prickly
skin. Thoughts of America, and commencing life afresh as an innocent
gentleman, had crossed his disordered brain. He wrote to his friend
Richard, proposing to collect disposable funds, and embark, in case of
Tom's breaking his word, or of accidental discovery. He dared not confide
the secret to his family, as his leader had sternly enjoined him to avoid
any weakness of that kind; and, being by nature honest and communicative,
the restriction was painful, and melancholy fell upon the boy. Mama
Thompson attributed it to love.

The daughters of parchment rallied him concerning Miss Clare Forey. His
hourly letters to Raynham, and silence as to everything and everybody
there, his nervousness, and unwonted propensity to sudden inflammation of
the cheeks, were set down for sure signs of the passion. Miss Letitia
Thompson, the pretty and least parchmenty one, destined by her Papa for
the heir of Raynham, and perfectly aware of her brilliant future, up to
which she had, since Ripton's departure, dressed and grimaced, and
studied cadences (the latter with such success, though not yet fifteen,
that she languished to her maid, and melted the small factotum
footman)--Miss Letty, whose insatiable thirst for intimations about the
young heir Ripton could not satisfy, tormented him daily in revenge, and
once, quite unconsciously, gave the lad a fearful turn; for after dinner,
when Mr. Thompson read the paper by the fire, preparatory to sleeping at
his accustomed post, and Mama Thompson and her submissive female brood
sat tasking the swift intricacies of the needle, and emulating them with
the tongue, Miss Letty stole behind Ripton's chair, and introduced
between him and his book the Latin initial letter, large and illuminated,
of the theme she supposed to be absorbing him, as it did herself. The
unexpected vision of this accusing Captain of the Alphabet, this
resplendent and haunting A. fronting him bodily, threw Ripton straight
back in his chair, while Guilt, with her ancient indecision what colours
to assume on detection, flew from red to white, from white to red, across
his fallen chaps. Letty laughed triumphantly. Amor, the word she had in
mind, certainly has a conn