"I really cannot go on like this," said Mr. Sharp to Mrs. Sharp, quite early on the following morning. "Thank God, I am not of a nervous nature, and patience is one of my largest virtues. But acting, as I have done, for the best, I cannot be expected to put up with perpetual suspense. This very day I will settle this matter, one way or the other." The lawyer for the first time now was flurried; he had heard of the capture of a spy last night—for so poor Hardenow had been described—and though he had kept that new matter to himself, he was puzzled to see his way through with it.

"Luke, my dear," replied Mrs. Sharp, with some of her tightenings not done up, "surely there need not be such hurry. You make me quite shiver, when you speak like that. I shall come down to breakfast without any power; and the Port-meadow eel will go out for the maids. Should we ever behold it again, Luke?"

"Of course not; how could you expect it? Slippery, slippery—hard it is to lay fast hold of anything; and the worst of all to bind is woman. I do not mean you, my dear; you need not look like that; you are as firm as this tag of your stays—corset, corset—I beg pardon; how can a man tell the fashionable words?"

"But, Luke, you surely would not think of proceeding to extremities?"

"Any extremity; if it only were the last. For the good of my family, I have worked hard; and there never should have been all this worry with it. Miranda, I may have strayed outside the truth, and outside the law—which is so much larger—but one thing I beg you to bear in mind. Not a thing have I done, except for you and Kit. Money to me is the last thing I think of; pure affection is the very first. And no one can meddle with your settlement."

"Oh, my darling," Mrs. Sharp exclaimed, as she fell back from looking at the looking-glass, "you are almost too good for this world, Luke! You think of everybody in the world except yourself. It is not the right way to get on, dear. We must try to be a little harder."

"I have thought so, Miranda; I must try to do it. Petty little sentiments must be dropped. We must rise and face the state of things which it has pleased Providence to bring about. I am responsible for a great deal of it; and with your assistance, I will see it through. We must take Kit in hand at once. My dear wife, can I rely upon you?"

"Luke, you may rely upon me for anything short of perjury; and if it comes to that, I must think first."

"No man ever had a better any more than he could have a truer wife, or one so perpetually young." With these words Mr. Sharp performed some little operations, which, even in the "highest circles," are sometimes allowed to be brought about by masculine hands, when clever enough; and before very long this affectionate pair went down to breakfast and enjoyed fried eel.

Kit, who had caught this fine eel, was not there; perhaps he was gone forth to catch another; so they left him the tail to be warmed up. In the present condition of his active mind, and the mournful absence of his beloved, Christopher found a dark and moody pleasure in laying night-lines. If his snare were successful, he hauled out his victim, and, with a scornful smile, despatched him; if the line held nothing, he cast it in again, with a sigh of habitual frustration. This morning, however, he was not gone forth on his usual round of inspection, but had only walked up to the livery-stables, to make sure of his favourite hack for the day. He had made up his mind that he must see Grace that very same day, come what would of it; he would go much earlier, and watch the door; and if this bad fortune still continued, he would rush up at last and declare himself.

But this bold resolve had a different issue; for no sooner had the young man, with some reluctance and self-reproach, dealt bravely with a solid breakfast, than he was requested by his dear mother to come into his father's little study.

Now, this invitation was not in accordance with the present mood of Christopher. He had made up his mind to be off right soon for the bowers of his beloved, with a roll and some tongue in his little fishing-creel, and a bottle of beer in each holster. In the depth of the wood he might thus get on, and enjoy to the utmost fruition of his heart all the beauty of nature around him. It was a cruel blow to march just then to a lecture from the governor, whose little private study he particularly loathed, and regarded as the den of the evil one. However, he set up his pluck and went.

Mr. Sharp, looking (if possible) more upright and bright than usual, sat in front of the large and strong-legged desk, where he kept his more private records, such as never went into the office. Mrs. Sharp also took a legal chair, and contemplated Kit with a softer gaze. He with a beating heart stood up, like a youth under orders to construe.

"My son," began the father and the master, in a manner large and affable, "prepare yourself for a little surprise on the part of those whose principal object is your truest welfare. For some weeks now you have made your dear mother anxious and unhappy, by certain proceedings which you thought it wise and manly to conceal from her."

"Yes, you know you did, Kit!" Mrs. Sharp interposed, shaking her short curls, and trying to look fierce. The boy, with a deep blush, looked at her, as if everybody now was against him.

"Christopher, we will not blame you," resumed Mr. Sharp, rather hastily, for fear that his wife should jump up and spoil all. "Our object in calling you is not that. You have acted according to our wishes mainly, though you need not have done it so furtively. You have formed an attachment to a certain young lady, who leads for the present a retired life, in a quiet part of the old Stow Wood. And she returns your affection. Is it so, or is it not?"

"I—I—I," stammered Kit, seeking for his mother's eyes, which had buried themselves in her handkerchief. "I can't say a word about what she thinks. She—she—she has got such a fashion of running away so. But I—I—I—well, then, it's no good telling a lie about it; I am deucedly fond of her!"

"That is exactly what I wished to know; though not expressed very tastefully. Well, and do you know who she is, my son?"

"Yes, I know all that quite well; as much as any fellow wants to know. She is a young lady, and she knows all the flowers, and the birds, and the names of the trees almost. She can put me right about the kings of England; and she knows my dogs as well as I do."

"A highly accomplished young lady, in short?"

"Yes, I should say a great deal more than that. I care very little for accomplishments. But—but if I must come to the point—I do like her, and no mistake!"

"Then you would not like some other man to come, and run away with her, quite against her will?"

"That man must run over my body first," cried Kit, with so much spirit that his father looked proud, and his poor mother trembled.

"Well, well, my boy," continued the good lawyer, "it will be your own fault if the villain gets the chance. I am doing all I can to provide against it; and am even obliged to employ some means of a nature not at all congenial to me, for—for that very reason. You are sure that you love this young lady, Kit?"

"Father, I would not say anything strong; but I would go on my knees, all the way from here to there, for the smallest chance of getting her!"

"Very good. That is as it should be. I would have done the very same for your dear mother. Mamma, you have often reminded me of it, when anything—well, those are reminiscences; but they lie at the bottom of everything. A mercenary marriage is an outrage to all good feeling."

"She has not got a sixpence, father; she told me so. She makes all the bread, and she puts by all the dripping."

"My dear boy, you know then what a good wife is. Mamma, we shall have to clear out the room where the rocking-horse is, and the old magic-lantern, and let this young couple go into it."

"My dear, it would be a long job; and there are a great many cracks in the paper; but still we could have in old Josephine."

"Those are mere details, Momma. But this is a serious question; and the boy must not be hurried. He may not have made up his mind; or he may desire to change it to-morrow. He is too young to have any settled will; and there is no reason why he should not wait——"

"Not a day will I wait—not an hour would I wait; in ten minutes I could pack everything!"

"He might wait for a twelvemonth, my dear Miranda, and sound his own feelings, and the young girl's too, if we could only be certain that the young man of rank, with the four bay horses, was not in earnest when he swore to carry her off to-morrow."

"My dear husband," Mrs. Sharp said, softly; "let us hope that he meant nothing by it. Such things are frequently said, and come to nothing."

"I tell you what it is," Kit almost shouted, with his fist upon the sacred desk; "you cannot in any way enter into my feelings upon such matters! I beg your pardon, that is not what I mean, and I ought never to have said it. But still, comparatively speaking, you can take these things easily, and go on, and think people foolish—but I cannot. I know when my mind is made up, and I do it. And to stop me with all sorts of nonsense—at least, to find fifty reasons why I should do nothing—is the surest of all ways to make me do it. I have many people who will follow me through thick and thin; though you may not believe it, because you cannot understand me, and your views are confined to propriety. Mine are not. And you may find that out in a very short time. At any rate, if I do a thing that brings you, father and mother, into any evil words, all I can say is, you never should have stopped me."

With this very lucid expression of ideas, Christopher strode away, and left his parents petrified—as he thought. Mrs. Sharp was inclined to be a dripping well; but Mr. Sharp was dry enough. "Exactly, exactly," he said, as he always said when a thing had come up to his reckoning; "nothing could have been done much better. Put the money in his best breeches' pocket, my dear, without my knowledge; and at the back-door kiss him. Adjure him to do nothing rash; and lend him your own wedding-ring, and weep. For a runaway match the most lucky of all things is the boy's mother's wedding-ring. And above all things, not a word about his rival, until he asks—and then all mystery; only you know a great deal more than you dare tell."

"Oh, Luke, are you sure that it will all go aright?"

"Miranda, tell me anything we can be sure of, and you will have given me a new idea. And I want ideas; I want them sadly. My power of invention is failing me, or at any rate that of combining my inventions. You did not observe that I was nervous, did you?"

"Nervous! Luke—you nervous! I should think that the end of the world was coming if I saw any nervousness in you! And in the presence of a boy, indeed——"

"My dear wife, I will give you my word that I felt—well, I will not say 'nervous,' if you dislike it—but a little uncomfortable, and not quite clear, when I saw how Kit was taking things. Real affection is a dreadful thing. I did not want so much of it. I meant to have told him who she is, till the turn of things made me doubt about it. But he is quite up for anything now, I believe, though he must be told before he goes. He is such a calf that he must not imagine that she has a sixpence to bless herself. He would fly off in a moment if he guessed the truth. He must know her name; and that you must tell him; and you know how to explain it all a thousand-fold better than I do."

"Possibly I do," replied Mrs. Sharp; "I may have some very few ideas of my own; although according to you, Mr. Sharp, I am only the mother of a calf!"

"Very well said, my dear. And I have the honour of being his father." They smiled at one another, for they both knew how to give and take.