This last remark, being uttered with a peculiarly magnificent and oracular tone, received from that tone a degree of importance with which letters cannot easily invest it. And seeing that it was an unanswerable truth, Mr Pringle did not reply to it; and Mr Darnley thereupon having hopes that, by the evidence which the rector of Smatterton possessed, Mr Robert Darnley might see the folly of his conduct, went on to say to Mr Pringle; “Now, sir, if it is not asking too much, may I request of you the favor that you will let my son see, or at least hear the letter which you hold in your hand. I think I can pledge my word that Lord Spoonbill shall know nothing of the matter from him.” To be able to confer a favor on Mr Darnley was a temptation too strong for Mr Pringle to resist; but he took care to let it be understood that the communication was indeed a particular favour. This scrupulousness was not repulsive to Mr Darnley’s taste, for he was much in the habit of making everything a matter of pomp and ceremony. After much farcical parade therefore, Mr Robert Darnley was sent for into the study. The scene formed by his entrance into the apartment was truly picturesque; but, in the absence of graphic and dramatic power, we must leave it to the reader’s imagination to form the picture for itself. Let the reader then imagine Mr Darnley the elder, a full-sized, good-looking, pompous, elderly gentleman, in clerical attire the most marked and definite, powdered with great profusion, and yet with exquisite accuracy, looking as venerable as a whole bench of bishops, as wise as the twelve judges, and as awful as Homer’s Jupiter Olympus when he frowned;--let the reader imagine on the other hand a smart, little, dapper, pale-faced shred of humanity, slender as a twig, meaningless as a gate-post, perked out with all the dandyism that the clerical garb will allow, screwing its unintellectual little features with mighty and painful effort into what it imagines to be a look of importance;--to these two personages there enters a third, ‘Of goodlie shape, erect and tall,’ with brow unclouded, with careless but not ungraceful gait, and directing a smile of interrogation to the two important ones. “Robert,” said the elder one with great solemnity, “this gentleman has in his possession a letter, which he will have the goodness to shew you, and which I hope and trust will set your mind at rest on a subject which has of late very much disturbed us all.” The smile on the young man’s countenance waxed fainter, and he anticipated and dreaded another fit of prosing. He turned towards Mr Pringle, who very politely handing the letter to him, said, “I received this letter, sir, from a relative in town, and I thought it my duty to communicate it to Mr Darnley. But as I am peculiarly situated, I do not wish to have it imagined by Lord Spoonbill that the information contained in this letter had transpired by my means.”