Horatio had just finished his introductory rhapsody, when the door opened, and my aunt's servant entered with tea and toast: the simmering of the water round the heated tube of the urn, tingling in the ears of Heartly, broke the thread of his narration. There was a pause of nearly a minute, while John was busy in arranging the equipage. "You should have waited till I had rung, John," said my aunt. "Please your ladyship," said John, "you directed me always to bring tea in at six precisely, without waiting for orders." My aunt looked puzzled: "You are right, John, I did; and (addressing Horatio) the fault of the interruption must therefore rest with me." Horatio bowed; the compliment was too flattering to be ~24~~ misunderstood. "Draw the curtains, John," said my aunt, "and make up the fire: we can help ourselves to what we want--you need not wait; and do not interrupt us again until you are rung for." "This is very mysterious," thought John, as he closed to the drawing-room door; and he related what he thought to my lady's maid, when he returned to the servants' hall. "You are, no conjurer, John," said Mrs. Margaret, with an oblique inclination of the head, half amorous and half conceited--"the old lady's will has been signed and sealed these three years; I was present when it was made--ay, and I signed it too, and what's more, I knows all its contents; there are some people in the world (viewing herself in an opposite looking-glass) who may be very differently circumstanced some day or other." John's heart had long felt a sort of fluttering inclination to unburthen itself, by linking destinies with the merry Mrs. Margaret; the prospect of a handsome legacy, or perhaps an annuity, gave an additional spur to John's affectionate feelings, and that night he resolved to put the question. All this Mrs. Margaret had anticipated, and as she was now on the verge of forty, she very prudently thought there was no time to lose. "They are a pair of oddities," continued the waiting-maid; "I have sometimes surprised them both crying, as if their hearts would break, over a new book: I suppose they have got something very interesting, as my lady calls it and Mr. Horatio is sermonizing as usual."--Mrs Margaret was not far wrong in her conjecture, for when my aunt and Horatio were again alone, she rallied him on the serious complexion of his style. [Illustration: page025] ~25~~ CHARACTER OF BERNARD BLACKMANTLE. BY HORATIO HEARTLY.