"Old Binns and Pitblado send you their remembrance. Why did your man Willie give the two sovereigns I gave him to his father? The old fellow is well enough off in his cottage, and lives like the son of an Irish king. He shot a magnificent silver pheasant before the Chillingham party left (they are gone then!) and Lady Louisa got the wings for her pork-pie hat. "Cora seems pining to join the Chillinghams, who, as you, of course, know, have been for a month past at their place near Canterbury. She is in low spirits, poor girl, and goes south in a week, when I shall, perhaps, accompany her. Lady Louisa has written to her thrice since they left. She says that Mr. Berkeley has been frequently visiting them; but never mentions you. What is the meaning of that?" I paused on reading this, for it embodied a vast deal for reflection! That the Loftuses should be at Chillingham Park unknown to me was not strange; neither was it strange that, situated as we were, poor Louisa should not mention me in her letters to Cora; but that Berkeley should be their frequent visitor, and omit to mention, or conceal that circumstance from me, was certainly startling! Berkeley! So this accounted for what the mess had remarked—his frequent absences from that agreeable board, from parades, and the used-up condition of his private horses. Was there any sly game afoot? So far as he was concerned, could I doubt it? His reserve to me declared that there was; and this game had been played for a month, with or without success, how was I to learn? Ha! thought I, if they knew about Miss Auriol, his unfortunate mistress! But noble morality is frequently very opaque—and my pay and expectations were but moonshine, when opposed to his solid thousands per annum. I was sorry to hear that Cora was coming so far south as Canterbury; for much as I loved and esteemed my cousin, I felt that I should rather avoid her now. I resume the letter. "How does your affair with la belle Louisa progress—eh? Well, I hope; though I think, with Thackeray, that ’every man ought to be in love a few times in his life, and have a smart attack of the fever. You are the better after it is over.’ "So we are to have hostilities at last! I was in Edinburgh yesterday, anent the programme of the spring meeting at Musselburgh, and heard war declared by Britain against Russia. It was proclaimed at the market cross by the Rothesay, Albany, and Islay heralds, attended by the Kintyre, Unicorn, and Ormond pursuivants, all in their tabards, and a strong guard of Highlanders, with bayonets fixed, and colours flying. It was a quaint and picturesque sight, that did your old uncle’s heart good, and set him thinking; for the same trumpets had many a time in the same place proclaimed war against England in the days of old." So ended my uncle’s rambling letter, which certainly had the effect of setting me to think too, and with a heart full of sudden trouble, anxiety, and irritation.