"I quite understand, Uncle Tom." "Then there's one other thing I've got to say. He accused me of having threatened to turn you out of my house. Now, my dear--" Hereupon Lucy struggled to say a word, hardly knowing what word she ought to say, but he interrupted her,--"Just hear me out till I've done, and then there need not be another word about it. I never threatened to turn you out." "Not you, Uncle Tom," she said, endeavouring to press his arm with her hand. "If your aunt said a word in her anger you should not have made enough of it to write and tell him." "I thought she meant me to go, and then I didn't know whom else to ask." "Neither I nor she, nor anybody else, ever intended to turn you out. I have meant to be kind to you both,--to you and Ayala; and if things have gone wrong I cannot say that it has been my fault. Now, you had better stay here, and not say a word more about it till he is ready to take you. That can't be yet for a long time. He is making, at present, not more than two hundred a year. And I am sure it must be quite as much as he can do to keep a coat on his back with such an income as that. You must make up your mind to wait,--probably for some years. As I told you before, if a man chooses to have the glory of independence he must also bear the inconvenience. Now, my dear, let there be an end of this, and never say again that I want to turn you out of my house." CHAPTER XXXV. TOM TRINGLE SENDS A CHALLENGE. The next six weeks went on tranquilly at Merle Park without a word spoken about Hamel. Sir Thomas, who was in the country as little as possible, showed his scorn to his son-in-law simply by the paucity of his words, speaking to him, when he did speak to him, with a deliberate courtesy which Mr. Traffick perfectly understood. It was that dangerous serenity which so often presages a storm. "There is something going to be up with your father," he said to Augusta. Augusta replied that she had never seen her father so civil before. "It would be a great convenience," continued the Member of Parliament, "if he could be made to hold his tongue till Parliament meets; but I'm afraid that's too good to expect." In other respects things were comfortable at Merle Park, though they were not always comfortable up in London. Tom, as the reader knows, was misbehaving himself sadly at the Mountaineers. This was the period of unlimited champagne, and of almost total absence from Lombard Street. It was seldom that Sir Thomas could get hold of his son, and when he did that broken-hearted youth would reply to his expostulations simply by asserting that if his father would induce Ayala to marry him everything should go straight in Lombard Street. Then came the final blow. Tom was of course expected at Merle Park on Christmas Eve, but did not make his appearance either then or on Christmas Day. Christmas fell on a Wednesday, and it was intended that the family should remain in the country till the following Monday. On the