Then Georgie read in Sir Percy Mitford's roundest hand and stiffest style, how his nephew Charles, utterly ungrateful for the kindness which he, Sir Percy, had showered upon him, and regardless of the fact that he had no resources of his own nor expectations of any, had plunged into "every kind of vice and debauchery, notably gambling"--(Sir Percy was chairman of Quarter-Sessions, and you might trace the effect of act-of-parliament reading in his style)-how he had lost large sums at cards; and how, with the double object of paying his debts and retrieving his losses, lie had at length forged Sir Percy's signature to a bill for £200; and when the document became due had absconded, no one knew where. Sir Percy need scarcely say that all communication between him and this unworthy member of--he grieved to say--his family was at an end for ever; and he took that opportunity, while informing Mr. Stanfield of the circumstance, of congratulating him on having been lucky enough to escape any matrimonial connection with such a rogue and a vagabond. Mr. Stanfield watched her perusal of the letter; and when she had finished it, and returned it to him calmly, he said: "Well, my dear! it's a severe blow, is it not?" "Yes, papa, it is indeed a severe blow. Poor Charley!" "Poor Charley, my dear! You surely don't feel the least compassion for Charles Mitford; a man who has--who has outraged the laws of his country!" "Not feel compassion for him, papa? Who could help it? Poor Charley, what a bitter degradation for him!" "For him! degradation for him! Bless my soul, I can't understand; for us, Georgina,--degradation for us, you mean! However, there's an end of it. We've washed our hands of him from this time forth, and never--" "Papa, do you know what you're saying? Washed our hands of Charles Mitford! Do you recollect that I have promised to be his wife?" "Promised to be his wife! Why, the girl's going mad! Promised to be his wife! Do you know that the man has committed forgery?" "Well, papa." "Well, papa! Good God! I shall go mad myself! You know he's committed forgery, and you still hold to your engagement to him?" "Unquestionably. Is it for me, his betrothed wife, to desert him now that he is in misery and disgrace? Is it for you, a Christian clergyman, to turn your back on an old friend who has fallen, and who needs your sympathy and counsel now really for the first time in his life? Would you wish me to give up this engagement, which, perhaps, may be the very means of bringing Charles back to the right?" "Yes, my dear, yes; that's all very well," said the old gentleman,--"all very--well from a woman's point of view. But you see, for ourselves--" "Well, papa, what then?" "Well, my dear, of course we ought not to think so much for ourselves; but still, as your father, I've a right to say that I should not wish to see you married to a--a felon." "And as a clergyman, papa?-what have you a right to say as a clergyman?"