As there was nothing for old Tom to do unless he kicked the door down, he would go home fuming, and have to content himself with writing very fierce and ungrammatical letters, of which the spelling was reckless, but the meaning plain, to his ward, which were never answered. Then old Tom would begin to laugh--it was so comical--and the next time he met the boy there would be that same haughty reserve on Skelton’s part, at which his guardian did not know whether to be most angry or amused. He was philosophic under it, though, and would say: “Look at the tutors I’ve got for him, begad! and every man-jack of them has been under the hack of that determined little beggar from the start. And when a man, woman, or child can get the upper hand of one who lives in daily, hourly contact, why, you might just as well let ’em go their own gait. Damme, _I_ can’t do anything with the arrogant little upstart!” No expense was spared in tutors, and, as each successive one had a horse to ride and a servant to wait on him, and was treated politely by young Skelton as long as he was let alone, the tutors never complained, and old Tom was quite in the dark as to his ward’s real acquirements. Mrs. Shapleigh frequently urged Mr. Shapleigh to go over to Deerchase and demand categorically of Richard Skelton exactly how much Latin and mathematics he knew, but old Tom had tried that caper unsuccessfully several times. He did find out, though--or rather Mrs. Shapleigh found out for him--that Skelton had fallen desperately in love with his cousin, Elizabeth Armistead, who was as poor as a church mouse; and, although Elizabeth was known to have a weakness for Jack Blair, her whole family got after her and bullied her into engaging herself to the handsome stripling at Deerchase. Skelton was then twenty. Elizabeth herself was only seventeen, but seventeen was considered quite old in those days. This affair annoyed Mrs. Shapleigh very much, whose daughter Sylvia, being about ten years old at the time, she looked forward to seeing established as mistress of Deerchase by the time she was eighteen. “Mr. Shapleigh,” his better half complained, “why don’t you go over to Deerchase and tell Richard Skelton up and down, that if he has fallen in love with Elizabeth Armistead he has got to fall out again?” “My love, if I wanted him to fall out of love I’d let him get married. There’s no such specific for love as matrimony, madam.” “It is not, indeed, Mr. Shapleigh,” answered madam, who, though weak in logic was not deficient in spirit, “and I’m sure that’s what my poor dear mother used to tell me when I thought I was in love with you. But just look at those Armisteads! Not a penny among them scarcely, and plotting and planning ever since Richard Skelton was born to get him for Elizabeth!” “Gadzooks, ma’am, in that case the Armisteads are too clever for all of us, because they must have been planning the match at least three years before Elizabeth was born.”