“Very well: that he _had_ hoped and intended to send Percy to college, and to buy Hugh a commission, and to build a church at Satanville, and to despatch a bran-new missionary to Sambobamboo, and to erect some very uncomfortable model cottages for the poor people, and to double Mr. Slowkopf’s salary; but that if Emily persisted in refusing him because of-the fortune, he would that very afternoon make it over by a deed of gift to that fine young man Mr. Peter Crawley, and marry her on the £800 per annum which he received as Rector.” And so, as it was quite clear that he meant what he said, and was prepared to act up to it, the poor Rosebud was obliged to give in, and consent to accept him fortune and all. Thus the interview ended as happily as it had begun miserably; and if Ernest didn’t steal a kiss ere he took leave, it must have been because he was a clergyman, and had the fear of the bishop before his eyes;--though if the bishop had been a good-natured one, he would have winked at such an offence--certainly an _arch_-bishop would have done so! CHAPTER XVI.--AND LAST.--THE MORAL DRAWN VERY MILD! Once again it was Christmas-day. At Ashburn Priory the plum-pudding was a “great fact;” Hugh Colville said so, and he ought to have known, for he ate enough, not to say too much, of it to test its merits--at least, if there be any truth in the old proverb, that “the proof of the pudding is in the eating.” But there were other good things at Ashburn Priory beside-plum-pudding. Love and Joy and Peace dwelt there, and pure Religion shed her mild light upon that happy household. The cloud which had hung over the fortunes of the Colville family had passed away, and the silver lining alone remained to testify that, although “In every life some rain must fall, Some days be dark and dreary,’ _yet_ that rain falls only to fertilise the ground, and enable it to bring forth fruit and flowers; and the metaphor holds good in the case before us. The sorrow which had fallen upon the Colville family had been a chastening sorrow, and its effects were to be recognised in a goodly crop of virtues. The proud and sensitive disposition of Percy had been strengthened and fitted for intercourse with the every-day world, by the rough teaching of the commercial-school, and he was about to enter on his Oxford career, a wiser and a better man than a more refined mode of education would have rendered him. Hugh’s volatile and impetuous disposition had been also favourably acted upon, by the misfortune which caused him to be placed under Doctor Donkiestir’s firm and judicious rule; and he had learned one essential requisite for a soldier’s profession, on which, since he had been to spend a day with Norman (now a captain in the --th Lancers) at the Flatville Barracks, he had set his heart, viz., obedience.