“You must come back with me to Pincote,” he said, when the astonished Tom had been duly captured. “I’ll take no refusal. I’ve got a fit of mopes, and if you don’t come and help to keep Jenny and me alive this evening, I’ll never speak to you again as long as I live.” So saying, the Squire linked his arm in Tom’s, and turned his face towards Pincote; and nothing loath was Tom to go with him. “I’ve done a fine thing this afternoon,” said Mr. Culpepper, as they drove along in the basket-carriage, which had been waiting for him at the hotel. “I’ve broken off Jenny’s engagement with Edward Cope.” Tom’s heart gave a great bound. “Pardon me, sir, for saying so,” he said as calmly as he could, “but I never thought that Mr. Cope was in any way worthy of Miss Culpepper.” “You are right, boy. He was not worthy of her.” “From the first time of seeing them together, I felt how entirely unfitted was Mr. Cope to appreciate Miss Culpepper’s manifold charms of heart and mind. A marriage between two such people would have been a most incongruous one.” “Thank Heaven! it’s broken now and for ever.” “I’ve broken off your engagement to Edward Cope,” whispered the Squire to Jane in the hall, as he kissed her. “Are you glad or sorry, dear?” “Glad—very, very glad, papa,” she whispered back as she rained a score of kisses on his face. Then she began to cry, and with that she ran away to her own room till she could recover herself. “Women are queer cattle,” said the Squire, turning to Tom, “and I’ll be hanged if I can ever make them out.” “From Miss Culpepper’s manner, sir,” said Tom, gravely, “I should judge that you had told her something that pleased her very much indeed.” “Then what did she begin snivelling for?” said the Squire, gruffly. “Why not tell him everything?” said the Squire to himself, as he and Tom sat down in the drawing-room. “He knows a good deal already,—why not tell him more? I know he can do nothing towards helping me to raise five thousand pounds, but it will do me good to talk to him. I must talk to somebody—and I feel sure my secret is quite safe with him. I’ll tell him while Jenny’s out of the room.” The Squire coughed and hemmed, and poked the fire violently before he could find a word to say. “Bristow,” he burst out at last, “I want to raise five thousand five hundred pounds in five days from now, and as I’m rather a bad hand at borrowing, I thought that you could, maybe, give me a hint as to how it could best be done. Cope would have advanced it for me in a moment, only that he happens to be rather short of funds just now, and I don’t want to trouble any of my other friends if it can anyhow be managed without.” He began to hum the air of an old drinking-song, and poked the fire again. “Capital coals these,” he added. “And I got ’em cheap, too. The market went up three shillings a ton the very day after these were sent in.” “Five thousand five hundred pounds is rather a large amount, sir,” said Tom, slowly.