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Affairs were in this posture between the belligerents, sometimes war to the knife, sometimes a truce under favour of Cissy’s white flag, when one October evening, John Stokes entered the dwelling of his kinswoman to inform her that Edward’s apprenticeship had been some time at an end, that he had come of age about a month ago, and that his master, for whom he had continued to work, was so satisfied of his talents, industry, and integrity, that he had offered to take him into partnership for a sum incredibly moderate, considering the advantages which such a connexion would ensure.

“You have more than the money wanted in the Belford Bank, money that ought to have been his,” quoth John Stokes, “besides all your property in land and houses and the funds; and if you did advance this sum, which all the world knows is only a small part of what should have belonged to him in right of his father, it would be as safe as if it was in the Bank of England, and the interest paid half-yearly. You ought to give it him out and out; but of course you won’t even lend it,” pursued this judicious negotiator; “you keep all your money for that precious chap, Mr. ‘Dolphus, to make ducks and drakes with after you are dead; a fine jig he’ll dance over your grave. You know, I suppose, that we’ve got the fellow in a cleft stick about that petition the other day? He persuaded old Jacob, who’s as deaf as a post, to put his mark to it, and when he was gone, Jacob came to me (I’m the only man in the parish who can make him hear) to ask what it was about. So upon my explaining the matter, Jacob found he had got into the wrong box. But as the chap had taken away his petition, and Jacob could not scratch out his name, what does he do but set his mark to ours o’ t’other side; and we’ve wrote all about it to Sir Robert to explain to the Parliament, lest seeing Jacob’s name both ways like, they should think ’twas he, poor fellow, that meant to humbug ’em. A pretty figure Mr. ‘Dolphus ‘ll cut when the story comes to be told in the House of Commons! But that’s not the worst. He took the petition to the workhouse, and meeting with little Fan Ropley, who had been taught to write at our charity-school, and is quick at her pen, he makes her sign her name at full length, and then strikes a dot over the e to turn it into Francis, and persuade the great folk up at Lunnun, that little Fan’s a grown-up man. If that chap won’t come someday to be transported for forgery, my name’s not John Stokes! Well, dame, will you let Ned have the money? Yes or no?”

That Mrs. Deborah should have suffered the good miller to proceed with his harangue without interruption, can only be accounted for on the score of the loudness of tone on which he piqued himself with so much justice. When she did take up the word, her reply made up in volubility and virulence for any deficiency in sound, concluding by a formal renunciation of her nephew, and a command to his zealous advocate never again to appear within her doors. Upon which, honest John vowed he never would, and departed.

Two or three days after this quarrel, Mr. Adolphus having arrived, as happened not un-frequently, to spend the afternoon at Chalcott, persuaded his hostess to accompany him to see a pond drawn at the Hall, to which, as the daughter of one of Sir Robert’s old tenants, she would undoubtedly have the right of entree; and Mrs. Deborah assented to his request, partly because the weather was fine, and the distance short, partly, it may be, from a lurking desire to take her chance as a bystander of a dish of fish; they who need such windfalls least, being commonly those who are most desirous to put themselves in their way.