Alice heard Arthur’s account of D’Almayne’s unexpected access of benevolence with surprise; but not having witnessed the quiet confidence with which he asserted his power of influencing Mr. Crane, she put but little trust in his assurances, merely setting them down as the vain boasting of a conceited youth, who was actuated by a good-natured desire to help them out of their difficulties. That she did him injustice may be gathered from the fact, that later in the day Mr. Crane sought a second interview with Mr. Hazlehurst., after which the latter gentleman summoned Harry Coverdale to his august presence; and when that happy but much confused young man entered the _sanctum sanctorum_ of the library, sent for his daughter Alice likewise, and having pronounced a strongly acidulated, not to say, crabbed, benediction upon their youthful heads, dismissed them in time to write by that day’s post to his man of business, to prepare the purchase-money for the Hazlecroft farm, then the property of Jedediah Crane, Esq. The dinner-party that evening passed off much more agreeably than the breakfast had done. Coverdale sat by his lady-love, looking the picture, or better still, the reality of happiness; but Arthur Hazlehurst wore a gloomy brow when he perceived that his cousin, Kate Marsden, had paired off with the cotton-spinner, and that they appeared mutually satisfied with the arrangement. CHAPTER XVI.--TREATS OF THINGS IN GENERAL. It must be confessed that Harry Coverdale was of a somewhat impetuous disposition. No sooner had he obtained Mr. Hazlehurst’s consent to the match, than he commenced a system of alternate petting and persecution, whereby he contrived to render the lives of Alice and her mother scarcely endurable, until he had induced them to fix an early day for his “execution,” as Tom irreverently paraphrased the solemnisation of the marriage ceremony. This object happily accomplished, a journey to London was proposed, whereat Mr. Hazlehurst looked very black; but when Alice seated herself on his knee, and, stroking his bald head, called him a dear, good, kind, papa (on speculation, probably, for at that moment he did not in the slightest degree look the character), his heart softened, and he consented to the plan. Then somebody told Arthur of a wonderful doctor, who had found out a new system of curing everything, and especially complaints analogous to that under which Mrs. Hazlehurst laboured; accordingly, he determined his mother should form one of the London party, and consult this fashionable fee-taker; and when Arthur had determined on a thing, it generally came to pass. Therefore, after considerable pro-ing-and con-ing, and macadamizing of difficulties, the matter was finally arranged by Mrs. Hazlehurst, her son, and her two daughters, taking up their abode at Cherry’s Hotel, in Jermyn Street, while Coverdale established himself in his old quarters at the Tavistock, in Covent-garden.