"Because I have more consideration for your income than you have yourself, young man," replied his uncle. "You will soon have need of it--every penny of it, sir--and more important duties to perform with it." "I do not understand your meaning, sir," rejoined Charles, a little surprised by a very meaning look upon Mr. Scriven's face, which was rarely suffered to convey anything more than his exact words implied. "It is very simple," said Mr. Scriven, rising and pushing over to his nephew two papers, which he had held in his hand for the last five minutes. "By these two letters you will see what I mean. The one I received more than a month ago, when I wrote to you; the other yesterday morning. Your father is a bankrupt, Charles Marston--that is all. And now I must go to the counting-house, for it is past the hour." CHAPTER XV. Lady Anne Mellent was seated alone in her drawing-room, in the large and handsome town-house which had been inhabited for many years by her father and grandfather. She looked less gay--more thoughtful than usual. Perhaps the weather might have some share in depressing; for most people born in England are more or less barometers, and subject to be raised or depressed by the state of the atmosphere. Foreigners, I believe, generally imagine that the cause of two Englishmen, as soon as they meet, beginning to talk of the weather, is that they have nothing else to talk of; or that the variation of our changeable climate is the most prominent fact in the natural history of the land; or because the weather is the only open question, free from all tinge of the party spirit which affects all other things in our native country. But the real cause lies deeper. It is, that in almost all instances the fibres of an Englishman's body are affected by the changes of the weather, like the strings of a fine instrument--more or less, of course, according to the constitution of the individual. But still, as I have said, in most men it is so; and the mind, being in tune or out of tune in consequence, emits sounds accordingly. Now, one of the strange vicissitudes of climate had taken place which are so common under our skies. A day or two of fine, clear summer weather had been succeeded by a morning covered with thick grey clouds, while the east wind hurried a sort of dim and filmy mist through the air, cutting to the marrow all who exposed themselves to its influence. It was the true picture of a reverse of fortune--the summer sun of prosperity clouded, dim uncertainty pervading the atmosphere, and the cold and cutting blast of ingratitude, and neglect, and contemptuous pity chilling the very soul.