Many days had now passed away since Mr Primrose had left Neverden and Smatterton, and since Robert Darnley had expressed his resolution to make prompt inquiry into the cause of the interruption of the correspondence between Penelope and himself. There had arrived no intelligence from the young gentleman: but Mr Primrose began now to think that he himself had not done right in listening and yielding to the delicate scruples of his daughter. The father of Penelope was of that complexion of mind that, under similar circumstances, he would have thanked any one for removing any misunderstanding, even had it been the lady herself.

He knew that Robert Darnley had not been the wilful cause of breaking off the correspondence, and he knew also that his own daughter had not neglected to answer the letters which she had received. He knew that the parties were attached to each other, and he had learned from Penelope herself that there was no foundation for the story of her attachment to Lord Spoonbill. Now what should prevent him from writing to Neverden to inform the young gentleman of this fact? He thought that it would be an act of kindness to both parties. Nevertheless, it should be observed, that Mr Primrose was not one of those terribly kind people who force their kindness upon one, whether we like it or not, as the man who beat his wife and said, “It is all for your good, my dear.”

When therefore he was fully satisfied that it would be but an act of kindness to his daughter to remove the mystery from the mind of Robert Darnley, he did not take this step without first consulting her for whose benefit such step was to be taken. At breakfast he said to Penelope:

“So, my dear, my excursion into the City was to no purpose last night. I find that I must make an earlier visit, and therefore I shall go again to-day. I hope and trust I may find matters not quite so bad as I first anticipated. And I think that you need not be in a very great hurry to engage in this profession. I cannot say I like patronage. But why should not we take some steps to let Robert Darnley know that the breaking off the correspondence was not your act? I think I ought to write to him. Indeed I almost promised that I would. Very likely he may be waiting till he hears from me.”

“My dear father,” exclaimed Penelope, “you surely would not think of such a step as that. It would be exceedingly indelicate, and might expose me to contempt. Mr Darnley knows that I am in London, and if he were at all disposed to renew the correspondence, or to have an explanation of the cause of its interruption, he would either have written or have made his appearance in town. Knowing that I was at Lord Smatterton’s, it was no difficult matter to write to me; for the letter would be sure to find me, if directed under cover to his lordship.”

“But, my dear child,” interrupted Mr Primrose, “I think he expects to hear from me; for I recollect now having said something to that effect.”

“But after this long interval, if Mr Darnley were really anxious, and at all concerned about me, he would have written to press you to the performance of your promise.”

“He might have done so to be sure,” said her father, slowly and thoughtfully, and then, as if recollecting himself, he continued in a livelier and quicker tone; “but perhaps, as he has not heard from me, he takes it for granted that you really were desirous of dropping the correspondence; and so after all you will appear to him as the person by whose act and deed the acquaintance has ceased.”

“And what will he, or can he think,” rejoined Penelope, “if, under present circumstances, there should be on my part an effort made to renew the acquaintance? No, no; let the matter rest. Even if you did promise to write first, you may be sure that he would not have waited patiently all this while in expectation of hearing from you. He might naturally enough suppose that I should object to having overtures made as from me; and if he had a real regard for me, we should have heard from him by this time. My attachment to Mr Darnley was founded on the qualities and endowments of the mind, and if I were deceived as to them, that attachment will soon die away.”

“Upon my word, child,” said Mr Primrose, “I really do not think you have any regard for Mr Darnley. You are certainly captivated by this Lord Spoonbill.”

This was said by Mr Primrose not angrily, but with a tone of mock reproach. Penelope shuddered at the allusion to Lord Spoonbill; but she endeavoured to conceal her emotion as much as possible, lest she should be under the necessity of informing her father of the proposal which his lordship had made her the day before.

While this conversation was passing between Mr Primrose and his daughter, another scene was passing at the town mansion of the Earl of Smatterton, where his lordship and family had arrived on the preceding day. Parliament was about to meet after the prorogation. On such occasions his lordship’s magnificence swelled out to most extraordinary dimensions. Then did he bethink himself that he was one of those who held in his hand the destiny of the British empire; and, when the postman brought letters from divers parts of the kingdom, his lordship felt himself to be the centre to which many minds were directing their most anxious thoughts. The letters were handed to his lordship on a silver tray. The servant who brought them swelled with importance, and even the silver tray shone with unusual brightness beneath its important burden.

“It is very fatiguing,” his lordship would sometimes say, “to have anything to do with public business. I often envy the obscurity of humble station. There is peace and quietness in the lowly valley.”

This, together with much more pompous sentimentality of the same kind, his lordship would utter when an unusual number of letters were brought to him. On the morning to which we now refer the number of letters was great, and they were spread on the table by his important lordship’s own right honorable hands. The contents of some he anticipated, and of others he uttered his conjectures.

“Oh! here are two from Smatterton,” exclaimed his lordship: “one, I see, is from Kipperson: that Kipperson is really a man of some talent; he has very just views of things. This letter from Kipperson is of course on private business, which must be postponed to the more important affairs which concern the destiny of the empire. But from whom can this other letter come? I have no other correspondent there, except my cousin Letitia, and this is not her writing.”

Then his lordship looked very knowingly at the letter again. But all this speechification was perfectly needless; for if he wished to know from whom the letter came, he had nothing to do but to open it; and till he did open it he was not likely to know anything about it. After a full share of idle wonderment, his lordship took the envelope off the mysterious letter, and found that it was addressed to Mr Primrose. Thereat his lordship was angry, and expressed great astonishment at the liberty thus taken with his right honorable name. On looking again at the cover he discerned a few lines of apology, bearing the signature of Robert Darnley, and stating that the liberty had been taken because the writer did not know the gentleman’s address, and because he also understood that Mr Primrose’s daughter was under his lordship’s roof.

“And how am I to know the gentleman’s address?” exclaimed his lordship with a most magnificent air.

But the Countess, who had been informed by Lord Spoonbill that Penelope had the intention of returning to undergo her ladyship’s patronage, did not feel quite so angry as her lord, but suggested that the young lord had seen Mr Primrose, and knew the name of the hotel where he lodged.

“Certainly,” said Lord Spoonbill, “I will take care of it.” And he forthwith laid hands upon the letter. Lord Smatterton then added, “I beg that Mr Primrose may be immediately recommended to make known his address to Mr Darnley, that this liberty may not be taken again.”

When Lord Spoonbill had possession of this letter he forthwith began to think how he should dispose of it. He was not quite sure, though it came from Robert Darnley to Mr Primrose, that it must of necessity discourse concerning love and Penelope. When his lordship therefore in his own apartment sat muttering over the letter, and wondering what it could contain, there was some little more reason for his doubts and wonderments than for those of Lord Smatterton over the unopened cover addressed to himself. The letter in possession of Lord Spoonbill was not addressed to himself, and therefore he had no right to open it, however deeply he might feel interested in its contents.

He took up the letter, and looked at the direction and at the seal; and he endeavoured to conjecture on what other subject than that of Penelope Mr Darnley could write to Mr Primrose. Then did his lordship poke his right honorable finger and thumb into the open sides of the letter, endeavouring to catch a glimpse of a word or two that might help him over the difficulties of conjecture. But the letter was so very ingeniously folded that not a single word could be seen. Hereupon, incredible as it may appear, his lordship was in a very great wrath, and was offended with the insolence of Robert Darnley, who had taken such pains to fold his letter, as if he had a suspicion that any individual of Lord Smatterton’s family should have the meanness to look into it. This curious mode of folding the letter induced his lordship to make another and another attempt to read a line or a word. But nothing could be seen. Now, in the progress of these repeated efforts at investigation, the letter was so much disfigured that his lordship, with all his ingenuity, could not make it look like itself again.

Another difficulty now arose: for his lordship was ashamed to send it in so questionable a shape; and should he send or make any apology, he must tell something very much like a lie, and perhaps by his clumsiness in apologizing create a suspicion of the real fact. Perplexed and undecided, he thrust the letter into his pocket and walked out.

Lord Spoonbill must have been very much attached to Miss Primrose to take all this trouble, and to expose himself to so many annoyances on her account; and the worst of the matter was that he could not, in making his visit to the young lady, quote all these instances of mortification and self-denial as illustrations and proofs of his devotedness to her. He could not tell her that, for her sake, he had stooped to meannesses of which any other man would have been ashamed. He could not tell her that, in order to place her in the enviable rank of nobility, he had intercepted her letters and had corrupted the integrity of Nick Muggins, the Smatterton post-boy. By the way we cannot help remarking, that Muggins was much to blame for accepting a bribe to betray his trust. But the love of gold is an universal passion, it is not confined to any one class or condition of human life; it influences the high and the low, the rich and the poor, the learned and the unlearned;

But to return to our enamoured hereditary legislator. He was walking, he scarcely knew whither, with Robert Darnley’s letter in his pocket; and he was meditating most perplexedly on the various events of human life, on those at least which concerned himself, and he thought that he had been acting very much like a fool, and he felt very much inclined to make a mighty effort to act like a wise man. But wisdom is not an extemporaneous production of a fool’s head. It required something more than a volition to change the whole tenor of the conduct.

In his resolution to act more wisely, the Right Honorable Lord Spoonbill made with himself this stipulation, namely, that at all events, and by any means honorable, or dishonorable, he must have Miss Primrose; for it was absolutely impossible that he could live without her. It was therefore no easy matter for his lordship so to manage matters as to gain Miss Primrose at all events, and yet to act as a man of honor. For here was in his pocket a letter, which, as a man of honor, he ought immediately to hand over to Mr Primrose; and yet he very strongly suspected, that if the said letter should come into the possession of the person to whom it was addressed, it would be most probably the means of placing an insuperable objection in the way of his lordship’s designs. It also entered into the mind of the meditating young gentleman that, if the acquaintance between Miss Primrose and Robert Darnley should be renewed, there might be some talk about the letters which had not reached their destination, and there might be made some enquiries. And what if, after all, Nick Muggins should turn traitor! Who could tell what influences fear or hope might exercise over the uncivilized post-boy of Smatterton?

Instruction being a much more important object than amusement, we feel ourselves bound to direct the attention of our readers to the instruction which may be derived from the fact here alluded to. Here is political instruction and personal instruction. We do not believe a word of the idle prating that some political greenhorns make about secret service money; but we do believe that many of those politicians, and they are not a few, who mistake cunning for wisdom, frequently become entangled in nets of their own weaving, and fall into pits of their own digging. To play the rogue with perfect success, is a perfection almost beyond the reach of ordinary humanity: for they, who have talent and power to do so, are generally too wise to possess the inclination, and they who are weak enough to possess the inclination, are in nine cases out of ten too clumsy to carry it on with perfect success. And the worst of it is, that they must make use of tools which are either too strong to be managed, or too weak to be depended on.

This is also a lesson of instruction to persons in private life, especially to those who have nothing to do but to live on the fruits of their grandfather’s industry, or their great grandfather’s roguery; for it teaches them that, if they will pursue those ends which are dishonorable, they must also make use of dishonorable means; and they will very frequently be placed in very uncomfortable and mortifying situations.

Now, however willing Lord Spoonbill might have been to suffer the letter in his possession to reach its proper destination, he found that he could not send it without exposing his former meanness to the risk of detection, and in all probability defeating the end which he had in view in intercepting the letters which were passing between Miss Primrose and Robert Darnley. In such perplexity, his lordship walked from one street to another till he found himself at a very considerable distance from Mr Primrose’s hotel.