se proclaimed them from home. I rung the bell, and soon
learned from a servant, whose face I had not seen before, that the family
had gone to Paris about a month before, with the intention of spending
the winter there. I need not say how grievously this piece of
intelligence disappointed me, and for a minute or two I could not
collect my thoughts. At last the servant said:

"If you have any thing very particular, sir, that my Lord's lawyer can
do, I can give you his address."

"No, thank you--nothing;" at the same time I muttered to myself, "I'll
have some occupation for him though ere long. The family were all quite
well, didn't you say?"

"Yes sir, perfectly well. My Lord had only a slight cold,"

"Ah--yes--and there address is 'Meurice;' very well."

So saying I turned from the door, and with slower steps than I had come,
returned to my hotel.

My immediate resolve was to set out for Paris; my second was to visit my
uncle, Sir Guy Lorrequer, first, and having explained to him the nature
of my position, and the advantageous prospects before me, endeavour to
induce him to make some settlement on Lady Jane, in the event of my
obtaining her family's consent to our marriage. This, from his liking
great people much, and laying great stress upon the advantages of
connexion, I looked upon as a matter of no great difficulty; so that,
although my hopes of happiness were delayed in their fulfilment, I
believed they were only about to be the more securely realized. The same
day I set out for Elton, and by ten o'clock at night reached my uncle's
house. I found the old gentleman looking just as I had left him three
years before, complaining a little of gout in the left foot--praising his
old specific, port-wine--abusing his servants for robbing him--and
drinking the Duke of Wellington's health every night after supper; which
meal I had much pleasure in surprising him at on my arrival--not having
eaten since my departure from London.

"Well, Harry," said my uncle, when the servants had left the room, and we
drew over the spider table to the fire to discuss our wine with comfort,
"what good wind has blown you down to me, my boy? for it's odd enough,
five minutes before I heard the wheels on the gravel I was just wishing
some good fellow would join me at the grouse--and you see I have had my
wish! The old story, I suppose, 'out of cash.' Would not come down here
for nothing--eh? Come, lad, tell truth; is it not so?"