I was so much piqued and so much pleased with this letter, that, had I had any further news to tell her--enough to find me an excuse for writing so promptly--I should there and then have sent her a reply. The part I liked most was where she had called me a boy. It was delightful to be rallied so familiarly, to be chided so saucily. And I noticed the dexterity with which she implied apologies and excuses for the conduct she seemed to reproach in me. However, it was now about time that I made my way to Grove End. Nothing but a sense of duty could have driven me there, I assure you. I reached the house a little before nine o’clock, and knocked very tremulously; I never remember feeling more nervous. What should I say to Conny--to _Mrs. Curling_, I mean? and what was Mrs. Curling to say to me? When I entered the hall, I could scarcely do anything for some moments but wipe my feet. Then I knocked my uncle’s hat off a peg in trying to hang up my own. The servant opened the drawing-room door, and giving my faculties a twist, as it were, to make them resonant, I entered. “Hallo!” said I, seeing the room empty, though the lamps were lighted, “where’s my uncle?” In truth, I had forgotten, in my nervousness, to inquire whether he had returned from London. “I’ll go and see, sir.” “Then he has come back?” “Yes, sir.” “Alone?” “No; Mr. and Mrs. Curling have come with him.” What adaptive aptitude servants have! How long would it take me to talk of “Mr. and Mrs. Curling” as glibly as if they had been man and wife ten years? I sat down and pretended to feel at my ease, meanwhile watching the door anxiously. In about three minutes’ time it opened, and in came--everybody! Yes, I protest all my relations swarmed in at once. First came my uncle, with his shirt collars well up above his ears; then came my aunt with red eyes; then came Conny looking white as a sheet: and then came Curling--already a bruised and broken son-in-law, glancing with scared eyes about him, and stepping forward with the nervous, dubious air you may have observed in a decayed tradesman, who, having called four times with a subscription paper, is mistaken by your servant, and asked to “walk in.” I stood up, not knowing whom to shake hands with first. “How are you, Charlie?” said my uncle in a melancholy voice. “We were all in the library when you came.” My aunt took an arm-chair, breathing noisily. “I am glad to welcome you home,” said I, taking Conny’s hand, and feeling as if I were saluting a stranger. “Thank you,” she whispered, hanging her head; and then gave her husband a glance. Poor little girl! I knew what she meant. The eyes of the mother were upon me; I was the Representative of the Family Gentility. My soul warmed to a magnanimous impulse, and, extending my hand cordially to Mr. Curling, I exclaimed in a loud, impressive voice,