“What do you think?  Just after you had gone away, I got by the mid-day post, which Jones (the butcher) brought from Roxham, several letters, amongst them one from Grumps and one from Uncle Tom.  Grumps has shown a cause.  Why?  ‘It’ said she was not an improper person; but, for all that, she is so angry with Uncle Tom that she will not come back, but has accepted an offer to go to Canada as companion to a lady; so farewell Grumps.

“Now for Uncle Tom.  ‘It’ suggested that I should live with some of my relations till I came of age, and pay them four hundred a year, which I think a good deal.  I am sure it can’t cost four hundred a year to feed me, though I have such an appetite.  I had no idea they were all so fond of me before; they all want me to come and live with them, except Aunt Chambers, who, you know, lives in Jersey.  Uncle Tom says in his letter that he shall be glad if his daughters can have the advantage of my example, and of studying my polished manners (just fancy my polished manners; and I know, because little Tom, who is a brick, told me, that only last year he heard his father tell Emily—­that’s the eldest—­that I was a dowdy, snub-nosed, ill-mannered miss, but that she must keep in with me and flatter me up).  No, I will not live with Uncle Tom, and I will tell ‘it’ so.  If I must leave my home, I will go to Aunt Chambers at Jersey.  Jersey is a beautiful place for flowers, and one learns French there without the trouble of learning it; and I like Aunt Chambers, and she has no children, and nothing but the memory of a dear departed.  But I don’t like leaving home, and feel very much inclined to cry. Hang the Court of Chancery, and Uncle Tom and his interference too!—­there.  I suppose you can’t find time to come over to-morrow morning to see me off?  Good-bye, dear Philip,

“Your affectionate friend,
“Maria Lee.”

Philip did manage to find time next morning, and came back looking very disconsolate.

CHAPTER IV

Philip went to college in due course, and George departed to learn his business as a lawyer in Roxham, but it will not be necessary for us to enter into the details of their respective careers during this period of their lives.

At college Philip did fairly well, and, being a Caresfoot, did not run into debt.  He was, as his great bodily strength gave promise of, a first-class athlete, and for two years stroked the Magdalen boat.  Nor did he altogether neglect his books, but his reading was of a desultory and out-of-the-way order, and much directed towards the investigation of mystical subjects.  Fairly well liked amongst the men with whom he mixed, he could hardly be called popular; his temperament was too uncertain for that.  At times he was the gayest of the gay, and then when the fit took him he would be plunged into a state of gloomy depression