We have now explained according to the best of our ability, and in as few words as distinctness would permit us to use, the varied perplexities occasioned by the apparently simple fact of Mr Primrose and his daughter taking up their abode at Smatterton rectory. Oh! how complicated are the interests of humanity, and what mighty changes are made in the history of the world and the destiny of nations by movements apparently trifling and of no moment. Common people do not observe these things; it is only such wise people, gentle reader, as you and I and Tacitus, that can take a philosophical and comprehensive view of the history of man. But we must economise our wisdom, or it will not hold out. Therefore let us proceed with our history. The letter which Robert Darnley had written to Mr Primrose, and which the Right Honorable Lord Spoonbill had fruitlessly fumbled and tumbled to ascertain the contents thereof, found its way at last into the hands for which it was by its writer originally destined. It was brought to Smatterton, as usual, by Nick Muggins. Nick was a poor lad and a somewhat simple one, though not altogether lacking craftiness. He was not so rich as an archdeacon, but he had not quite determined that he was too poor to keep a conscience; therefore he had not entirely given it up for a bad job. He kept a pony--he was almost forced to do so--but he kept his pony very scantily and worked it hardly, and the beast was at best but a queer kind of animal. It would have been a riddle to Buffon, and a treasure to Sir Joseph Banks. Nick's conscience was kept about as scurvily as his pony, and was much such another nondescript; but, like his pony, it answered his purpose as well as a better; it was kicked, cuffed, and buffeted about, but still it was a conscience. Now this conscience, such as it was, smote poor Muggins right heartily when he delivered into the fair hands of Penelope Primrose a letter for her father. The poor lad recollected that he had, at Lord Spoonbill's expense, drunk several more quarts of strong beer and glasses of gin than would otherwise have fallen to his lot, and that he had obtained these extra luxuries by putting into the hands of his lordship those letters which he ought to have delivered to Penelope Primrose.