We have narrated that the right honorable parents of Lord Spoonbill were indignant at the proposal of their son, and we have also stated that despatch was to the young gentleman an object of the greatest importance. The reason why he was in so much haste has also been stated. Now it so happened, that on the very day on which the letter of Robert Darnley was intercepted at the house of Lord Smatterton, and by the meanness of Lord Spoonbill, Mr Primrose went again into the City and called on his agent, and made enquiries concerning the probabilities or chances of his bankers paying a good dividend. In these enquiries he found himself most agreeably surprised, by ascertaining two very important points: one was, that only part, and that no very great part of his property had been paid into the hands of the said banker; and another was, that what had been already paid there would, in all probability, be soon forthcoming again, very little, if at all, diminished by the untoward circumstances that compelled a stoppage. While therefore Lord Spoonbill was sulking and pouting to his papa and mama about Penelope Primrose, that young lady was enjoying the agreeable and pleasant intelligence which her father had brought from the City. The brief discussion which passed between the father and daughter concerning the propriety of writing to Robert Darnley, we have already narrated. This took place on the morning of the day on which Mr Primrose, going into the City, found his affairs in so much better order than he had anticipated. On the evening of that day the subject was renewed, though but faintly and indirectly. But in the course of conversation Mr Primrose alluded to the offer which Mr Pringle, the new rector of Smatterton, had made of accommodating Mr Primrose with the parsonage-house, provided he should choose to take up his residence at Smatterton. Now Penelope loved Smatterton for many reasons. There had she first learned to know and feel what was real kindness of heart. With that village were blended all her early associations and recollections. She loved the village church, and there was to her ear music in its abrupt little ring of six small bells. The very air of the village was wholesome to her, morally as well as physically. The great booby boys and the freckled girls of the village were her intimates; not her companions indeed, but she could sympathize with them, although they could not always sympathize with her. She also knew the cows and the dogs and the horses. She knew the names of a great many of them; and very often, during her short sojourn in the great city, she had called to mind with a starting tear the recollection of the monotonous, drawling, daily tone, with which the farmers' men talked to these animals.