p. He had a
modest lodging in London, but before he started he prepared himself for
what must occur by giving notice. "I don't say as yet that I shall give
them up; but I might as well let you know that it's possible." This he
said to Mrs. Brown, who kept the lodgings, and who received this
intimation as a Mrs. Brown is sure to do. But where should he betake
himself when his home at Mrs. Brown's had been lost? He would, he
thought, find it quite impossible to live in absolute idleness at the
rectory. Then in an unhappy frame of mind he went down by the train to
Stevenage, and was there met by the rectory pony-carriage.

He saw it all in his mother's eye the moment she embraced him. There was
some terrible trouble in the wind, and what could it be but his uncle?
"Well, mother, what is it?"

"Oh, Harry, there is such a sad affair up at the Hall!"

"Is my uncle dead?"

"Dead! No!"

"Then why do you look so sad?--

"'Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,
So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone,
Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night.'"

"Oh Harry do not laugh. Your uncle says such dreadful things!"

"I don't care much what he says. The question is--what does he mean to
do?"

"He declares that he will cut you off altogether."

"That is sooner said than done."

"That is all very well, Harry; but he can do it. Oh, Harry! But come and
sit down and talk to me. I told your father to be out, so that I might
have you alone; and the dear girls are gone into Buntingford."

"Ah, like them! Thoroughbung will have enough of them."

"He is our only happiness now."

"Poor Thoroughbung! I pity him if he has to do happiness for the whole
household."

"Joshua is a most excellent young man. Where we should be without him I
do not know." The flourishing young brewer was named Joshua, and had
been known to Harry for some years, though never as yet known as a
brother-in-law.

"I am sure he is; particularly as he has chosen Molly to be his wife. He
is just the young man who ought to have a wife."

"Of course he ought."

"Because he can keep a family. But now about my uncle. He is to perform
this ceremony of cutting me off. Will he turn out to have had a wife and
family in former ages? I have no doubt old Scarborough could manage it,
but I don't give my uncle credit for so much cleverness."

"But in future ages--" said the unhappy mother, shaking her head and
rubbing her eyes.

"You mean that he is going to