"How exactly you do talk like your dear mother!" Mrs. Chumps answered, and rather shut me up; for a Bachelor of Arts ought to do more than that. "I dare say the young man felt that deep enough; and my very best sympathies would be with him, having had out, from first to last, five and forty of 'em." "Ma!" cried Miss Belinda, "Now how can you be so wicked? Mr. Upmore knows better, when he sees them all there. And as for five and forty, and at fifty shillings each--oh, Mr. Upmore, how many have we got?" "That depends upon circumstances," I replied, for fear of being wrong, having never been told at Oxford, nor yet by Mr. Cope, nor yet by Dr. Rumbelow, nor any of the Classics I had dealt with yet. "Some have got more, and some have less, no doubt." "Never mind that;" Mrs. Chumps resumed,--"such subjects are meant for young people, or those who have never known what ill health means. But, my dear Tommy, the exact sum is twelve thousand, one hundred, and twenty-five pounds, deducting the duty of three per cent.; and hard it is to have to break the even money. But the poor dear does her best to feel resigned; and the other will have to pay six per cent.; that's one comfort, at any rate. And lucky she may count herself to get it at that reckoning, when the whole twenty-five should have come this way. But there, we must be easier to please, as I'm sure has always been my motto. It will fetch me back to the Church, it will; just when I was going to join the Congregation. They provides in the Church such a tenderness of feeling, as I first learned out of the Catechism. N. or M. it says, and he was both, for his name was 'Nathaniel Matthew,' and he sat at the receipt of Customs. And my Godfather, and Godmother, in my Baptism, wherein I was made an Inheritor. There is no such fine feeling among them Dissenters. Poor dear, it is a sad blow for her! There was tears in her eyes when she told us of it, and no Mammon of unrighteousness could stop them rolling. My son William, who was first of all the Colleges, is gone to the lawyer now, to give the proper orders, as a Barrister of Lincoln Inn is bound to do. She have just dropped in to talk about the mourning; her dear mamma says black; but her mind is too distressful, and not at all suitable to her bright complexion. Lavender, to my mind, is as deep as need be; and the poor dear never seen him till his funeral, that took place at Highgate yesterday. Give us your opinion, Mr. Upmore, if you please; after coming from all their Ladyships." "But I don't understand, Mrs. Chumps," I answered, wondering at my own stupidity. "I have not the least idea, what the circumstances are." "No more don't I, altogether. The whole have come such a sudden blow to us. Belinda, darling, run and fetch the papers. Oh, bless the girl, she's gone without the keys, I do believe!"