And then there arose a cry in the room, a sort of concerted yet unconcerted and unharmonious union of voices. The Squire made his exclamation in a deep growling bass. Mrs. Prescott came in with a sort of alto, and the girls gave a short shrill shriek. A thousand pounds! thousands of pounds were not plentiful in Horton. Anna and Sophie themselves knew that very few would fall to their share, and neither of them had so much as a curate to make a living for her. They had been very willing to be liberal about the trousseau, but a thousand pounds! that was a different matter altogether. They all gazed with horror at the revolutionary who proposed this. John was not clever, as everybody knew; he looked still less clever than he was. He had pale blue eyes of a wandering sort, which did not look as if they were very secure in their sockets, and a long fair moustache drooping over the corners of his mouth. And he had a habit of sticking a glass in one eye, which fell out every minute or two and made a break in his conversation. Many people about Horton were of opinion that he was “not all there,” but his family did not generally think so. At this moment, however, with one accord it occurred to them all that there was something not quite sane about John. “Thir,” said John to his father, “you needn’t trouble if you’ve any objection. I mean to do it mythelf.” “Do it yourself! you must be out of your senses,” cried his mother. “Where will you get a thousand pounds? I never heard such madness in all my life.” “I suppose he means to take it off his legacy,” said the Squire, pale with emotion; “if you’ve got a thousand pounds to dispose of, you had better look a little nearer home. There’s Percy always drawing upon me, and there’s the house falling to pieces----” “Or if you want to give it away, give it to your sisters, who have a great deal more to keep up with their little money than ever Mary will have,” Mrs. Prescott said. John did not say much. “I’ve thpoken to Bateman about the thettlement,” he informed them, looking round dully with those unsteady eyes of his, with an awkward jerk of his head and twist of his face to arrest the fall of the eyeglass. The family, looking at him, were all exceptionally impressed with the dulness of John’s appearance, the queerness of his aspect. Really he did not look as if he were “all there.” But they were perfectly convinced they might move Horton House as soon as John, and that the settlement on Mary, which they all thought so completely unnecessary, was an accomplished thing.