The next morning at breakfast-time the Colonel did not appear. The servant said he had risen very early, and left a note. "MY DEAR AND KIND FRIENDS,--I came to a decision in the middle of the night, but will not just now tell you what it is. The decision having been come to, I am determined to act upon it at once, and leave Chesnut Hill to catch the early train. Pray excuse this, and believe me, with much gratitude for all your kindness, "Yours most truly, JOHN STANBURNE." CHAPTER IX. OGDEN OF WENDERHOLME. The Ogdens did not go to live at Wenderholme for a long time, indeed Mrs. Ogden did not even go to see the place; but her son Jacob went over one day in a gig, and, in the course of his stay of a few hours, settled more points of detail than a country gentleman would have settled in a month. He planted an agent there, and took on several of Colonel Stanburne's outdoor servants, including all his gamekeepers, but for the present did not seem inclined to make any use of Wenderholme as a residence. He had been present at the sale of the furniture, where he had bought every thing belonging to the principal rooms, except a few old cabinets and chairs, and other odd matters, of which the reader may hear more in a future chapter. It had always been a characteristic of the Ogdens not to be in a hurry to enjoy. They would wait, and wait, for any of the good things of this world--perhaps to prolong the sweet time of anticipation, perhaps simply because the habit of saving, so firmly ingrained in their natures, is itself a habit of waiting and postponing enjoyment in favor of ulterior aims. But in the case of Wenderholme, the habit of postponing a pleasure was greatly helped by an especial kind of pride. Both Jacob Ogden and his mother were proud to a degree which may sometimes have been equalled, but can never have been surpassed, by the proudest chiefs of the aristocracy. Their pride, as I have said, was of a peculiar kind, and consisted far more in an intense satisfaction with themselves and their own ways, than in any ambition to be thought, or to become, different from what they were. Now, it would not have been possible to imagine any thing more exquisitely agreeable to this pride of theirs than that Wenderholme Hall should be _treated as an appendage to Milend_, that the great kitchen-gardens at Wenderholme should supply vegetables, and the hothouse grapes, to the simple table in the little plain house at Shayton. It was delightful to Mrs. Ogden to be able to say, in a tone of assumed indifference or semi-disapproval, "Since our Jacob bought Wenderholme, he's always been wishin' me to go to see it--and they say it's a very fine place--but I don't want to go to see it; Milend is good enough for me." If the hearer expressed a natural degree of astonishment, Mrs. Ogden was inwardly delighted, but showed no sign of it on her countenance. On the contrary, her eyebrows would go