ters of this description passed, and Jack was liberally supplied with
such an amount as his father anticipated that he might reasonably want.
But at the end of about two years came a much more urgent epistle. Jack
was sorry to say that he had been unavoidably compelled to go into debt.
No blame was to be attached to him in the matter. He had not incurred
the obligation of a penny for anything beyond the barest necessaries; he
hoped his father would not imagine that he had been living
extravagantly. But he wished Sir Thomas to understand that he really
had not a suspicion of the inevitable expenses of Court life. The sums
which he had been so good as to remit were a mere drop in the ocean of
Jack's necessities.

Sir Thomas replied, without any expression of displeasure, that if his
son could get leave of absence sufficient to pay a visit to Lancashire,
he would be glad to see him at home, and he desired that he would bring
all his bills with him.

The answer to this letter was Jack himself, who came home on an autumn
evening, most elaborately attired, and brimful of news.

A fresh punishment had been devised for felony--transportation to the
colonies among the savages. The Spaniards were finally and completely
expelled from the Dutch provinces. A Dutchman had made the
extraordinary discovery that by an ingenious arrangement of pieces of
glass, of certain shapes, at particular distances, objects far off could
be made to seem nearer and larger. The Queen was about to send out a
commercial expedition to India--the first--from which great things were
expected. There was a new proclamation against Jesuits and "seminary
priests." All these matters naturally enough, with Jack's personal
adventures, occupied the first evening.

The next morning, Sir Thomas asked to see the bills. Jack brought out a
tolerably large package of documents, which he presented to his father
with a graceful reverence.

"I do ensure you, Sir, that I have involved me for nought beyond the
barest necessities of a gentleman."

His father opened and perused the first bill.

"`One dozen of shirts at four pound the piece.' Be those, my lad, among
the barest necessities?"

"Of a gentleman, Sir," said Jack.

"Four pound, Brother! Thou must mean four shillings," cried Rachel.

"'Tis writ four pound," calmly returned Sir Thomas.

"Good lack Jack!" said Rachel, turning to her nephew. "Were there
angels for buttons all the way down?"

"T