Mrs. Lovely died, prematurely aged, in the birth of a still-born child, and Mr. Valentine Lovely and his young son continued to live the same haphazard existence for another ten years. Charles spent all his time with his father who in the intervals of drink and play taught his heir to step a minuet, sing a merry song, and indite a witty epigram; also he gave him a case of pistols, heavily chased with the Lovely arms, and lent him the family tree for target. Finally he made him proficient in the polite use of the smallsword and the dice-box. Once, when an early summer made the Bath intolerably hot, Mr. Lovely and his heir posted down to Devonshire in a crimson chariot putting up at the _Prior's Head_, in Danver Monachorum. He spent a week paying unwelcome visits to the neighbouring gentry who looked askance at the crimson chariot and still more askance at the degenerate heir of the Lovelys. Valentine soon tired of so much pastoral exercise and departed to St. Germain's, leaving young Charles in the care of an old stillroom maid, now a prosperous farmer's wife. The boy spent placid hours in rich meadows, ate a quantity of scalded cream, and grew out of knowledge in the six months of his stay. He used to wander down to the park gates--gloriously wrought-iron gates between massive stone pillars that bore on each summit a quintett of cannon balls, the reputed trophy of some seafaring Elizabethan Lovely. There was a picture in the great hall, of curiously inferior execution, portraying numbers of Devon sailormen led by a huge-ruffed gentleman with a long peaked beard, swarming up the towering sides of the galleon _Jesu Maria_. Charles was taken to see it when the new family was gone up to London town. He also saw the great stone swan over the vast fireplace, with the motto of his house, _Sum decorus_. Later in the autumn his father returned and the old life of lodgings, inland Spas and long posting journeys was resumed. He had never again visited that remote Devon village, with its cows and pastures and dairymaids and famous chronicles. Then, just after Charles reached his majority, Mr. Lovely Senior died quite suddenly, and our hero found himself in undisputed possession of the interest on five thousand guineas and as much more in cash, owing to a lucky run by his father in the week before his death. Charles now indulged the family vice of throwing money to the dogs and, having lost the earnings of his father, set about realizing a trifle of ready money on the five thousand guineas left him by his mother's aunt. This step brought him into pen-and-ink contact with old Sir George Repington who wrote him a stern letter of advice, with a postscript offering him a stool in the Repington bank. Charles was furious and did not reply.