One morning a letter was brought to Mr. Grey, which he opened and looked at with some surprise, glanced at the signature, and exclaimed, "From Hubert Gage! How extraordinary! Why could not the silly fellow come and say what he wanted, instead of writing it?" Mr. Haveloc looked up at the unwonted interruption, and seeing Mr. Grey reading his letter with many sounds of impatience and vexation, he could not avoid "hoping that there was no bad news from Chirke Weston." "No; not bad news," said Mr. Grey laying down his letter and his reading glasses upon it, and leaning back in his chair, as if quite tired out: "not exactly bad news." This remark was, perhaps, rather calculated to excite than to gratify his curiosity; but Mr. Haveloc resumed his reading without farther inquiry, and Mr. Grey remained for some time in deep thought. At last Mr. Grey looked up, and turned round to his companion. "A very strange thing, Claude," said he. "I am sure, as far as I am concerned, the most unlooked-for occurrence. Here is Hubert Gage proposing for my little niece, Margaret--a mere baby!" Mr. Haveloc started from his chair, made a step or two towards Mr. Grey, and then returned quietly to his seat, and made a great show of finding the place in his book again. "Yes, it is very remarkable," said Mr. Grey, who had interpreted Mr. Haveloc's sudden movement into an expression of surprise; "I could never have foreseen it. And really, Hubert Gage, a mere boy! Of course the connexion is highly honourable, impossible to be better; but at their age. Not that anything can be more fair and manly than his letter; but if he has Captain Gage's consent to fetter himself by an engagement of this kind before he is one and twenty years old--why his father has not half the sense I gave him credit for." Mr. Haveloc was silent. "Yet poor young fellow," said Mr. Grey, taking up his letter, "if he is in love as he says he is, perhaps all this impatience is more natural in him than in an older man. And although this love is very often a source of great inconvenience, yet we all look back to that period, whether successful or not, as to the most spiritual, and the happiest portion of our lives. Faith, I will do all I can for him in the business." "And Miss Capel," said Mr. Haveloc, speaking with effort. "Oh! for her, poor little girl, I dare say she fancies herself attached to him. For I have often remarked, Claude, that when a handsome and agreeable young man pays a great deal of attention to an inexperienced girl, it generally ends in this way; first impressions are everything. And you heard her telling me the other night that Hubert used to roast chestnuts for her, and all that sort of thing. I dare say it is all for the best." Mr. Haveloc made no reply. A dark frown settled on his face, and he leaned his head on his hands, seeming to be immersed in the folio volume that stood on a desk before him.