t held back
by reserve and sense of the uncongeniality of the man. His aunt,
however, in the midst of her own joy, marked his restless eye, and put
the question, whether Mary Ponsonby had arrived?

'Ha! you let her go, did you?' said Oliver, turning on Louis. 'I told
her father you'd be no such fool. He was in a proper rage at your
letter, but it would have blown over if you had stuck by her, and he is
worth enough to set you all on your legs.'

Louis could not bring himself to make any answer, and his mother
interrupted by a question as to Dona Rosita.

'Like all the rest. Eyes and feet, that's all. Foolish business! But
what possessed Ormersfield to make such a blunder? I never saw
Ponsonby in such a tantrum, and his are no trifles.'

'It was all the fault of your clerk, Robson,' said James; 'he would not
refute the story.'

'Sharp fellow, Robson,' chuckled Oliver; 'couldn't refute it. No; as
he told me, he knew the way Ponsonby had gone on ever since his wife
went home, and of late he had sent him to Guayaquil, about the
Equatorial Navigation--so he had seen nothing;--and, says he to me, he
had no notion of bringing out poor Miss Ponsonby--did not know whether
her father would thank him; and yet the best of it is, that he pacifies
Ponsonby with talking of difficulty of dealing with preconceived
notions. Knows how to get hold of him. Marriage would never have been
if he had been there, but it was the less damage. Mary would have had
more reason to have turned about, if she had not found him married.'

'But, Oliver,' said his mother, 'I thought this Robson was an honest
man, in whom you had entire confidence!'

'Ha! ha! D'ye think I'd put that in _any_ man? No, no; he knows how
far to go with me. I've plenty of checks on him. Can't get business
done but by a wide-awake chap like that.'

'Is Madison under him?' asked Louis, feeling as if he had been
apprenticing the boy to a chief of banditti.

'The lad you sent out? Ay. Left him up at the mines. Sharp fellow,
but too raw for the office yet.'

'Too scrupulous!' said James, in an undertone, while his uncle was
explaining to his mother that he could not have come away without
leaving Robson to manage his affairs, and Mr. Ponsonby, and telling
exultingly some stories of the favourite clerk's sharp practice.

The party went down together in a not very congenial state.

Next to Mrs. Frost's unalloyed gladness, the most pleasant spectacle
was ol