hether he would go to the
Bank, or take the train leading to Wrexby. He chose the latter course,
until, feeling that he was about to embark in a serious undertaking, he
said to himself, "No! duty first;" and postponed the expedition for the
day following.

CHAPTER XXXII

Squire Blancove, having business in town, called on his brother at the
Bank, asking whether Sir William was at home, with sarcastic emphasis
on the title, which smelt to him of commerce. Sir William invited him to
dine and sleep at his house that night.

"You will meet Mrs. Lovell, and a Major Waring, a friend of hers, who
knew her and her husband in India," said the baronet.

"The deuce I shall," said the squire, and accepted maliciously.

Where the squire dined, he drank, defying ladies and the new-fangled
subserviency to those flustering teabodies. This was understood;
so, when the Claret and Port had made a few rounds, Major Waring was
permitted to follow Mrs. Lovell, and the squire and his brother settled
to conversation; beginning upon gout. Sir William had recently had a
touch of the family complaint, and spoke of it in terms which gave
the squire some fraternal sentiment. From that, they fell to talking
politics, and differed. The breach was healed by a divergence to their
sons. The squire knew his own to be a scamp.

"You'll never do anything with him," he said.

"I don't think I shall," Sir William admitted.

"Didn't I tell you so?"

"You did. But, the point is, what will you do with him?"

"Send him to Jericho to ride wild jackasses. That's all he's fit for."

The superior complacency of Sir William's smile caught the squire's
attention.

"What do you mean to do with Ned?" he asked.

"I hope," was the answer, "to have him married before the year is out."

"To the widow?"

"The widow?" Sir William raised his eyebrows.

"Mrs. Lovell, I mean."

"What gives you that idea?"

"Why, Ned has made her an offer. Don't you know that?"

"I know nothing of the sort."

"And don't believe it? He has. He's only waiting now, over there in
Paris, to get comfortably out of a scrape--you remember what I told you
at Fairly--and then Mrs. Lovell's going to have him--as he thinks; but,
by George, it strikes me this major you've got here, knows how to follow
petticoats and get in his harvest in the enemy's absence."

"I think you're quite under a delusion, in both respects," observed Sir
William.

"What makes you think that?"

"I