The conversation referred to took place in the breakfast-room of one of the attractive residences lining the route to the Bois du Cambre, which all my readers know is one of the fairest suburbs of Brussels, and of which, as most of them have gone there, I doubt not, to spend a happy day, I need say no more. The family did not reside there, but far away in the suburb, where rents and wages and provisions were alike cheap. The Colonel had gone abroad to educate his daughters more cheaply than he could in London, and the plan had so far succeeded that the young ladies had managed to read a good many French novels, the perusal of which not a little interfered with the enjoyment of family prayers, Bible-reading, and religious conferences, to which they were invariably taken by their mamma, and other means of grace. The family funds had been rather restricted, and at Brussels the mamma had assured herself that there was an exceptionally attractive Evangelical ministry in the Church of England, under the special license of the Bishop of London, and that was enough for her, the Colonel merely considering he could vegetate more cheaply in Belgium than in London. But they were all quite ready to leave for England; the Colonel to strut as a baronet and landed proprietor, the young ladies with a view to the matrimonial market—for, alas! they had met with few eligibles in Brussels—and the mamma that she might carry on on a larger scale and with increased success the missionary operations of which she had been the centre in Brussels. If she had not done much good among the people, she had—and that was her one great reward—managed considerably to annoy the priests, who glared at her with evil eyes as they watched her sallying forth daily with her bag of tracts. Money it was hard to get out of the Colonel’s lady, even in the most urgent cases; but no one was more ready with her tracts. CHAPTER XXVIII. A COUNTRYMAN IN TOWN. ‘What has brought you to town?’ asked Wentworth one morning, as they were sitting in Clifford’s Inn, to a visitor who had just put in an appearance. His garb denoted his profession. He was the Presbyterian minister who had acted as Wentworth’s friend at the time of the election. ‘Well, I’ve come on rather important business. There is an old woman in the workhouse who maintains that the deceased Baronet has left a son who is heir to the title and estate. And thus I came up to London; but I have been run off my legs. I give you my word of honour, you won’t catch me in a hurry in London again.’ ‘How is that?’ asked Wentworth.