"Odd, too! Haven't you any idea? Surely her name was mentioned?" "No; my mother wrote in a roundabout style, so as to feel her way. She knew me, and feared that I might take a prejudice against the lady. No doubt I should have done so. She only alluded to her in a general way." "A general way?" "Yes; that is, you know, she mentioned the fact that the lady was a niece of Sir Gilbert Biggs." "What!" cried Dacres, with a start. "A niece of Sir Gilbert Biggs," repeated Hawbury. "A niece--of--Sir Gilbert Biggs?" said Dacres, slowly. "Good Lord!" "Yes; and what of that?" "Very much. Don't you know that Minnie Fay is a niece of Sir Gilbert Biggs?" "By Jove! So she is. I remember being startled when you told me that, and for a moment an odd fancy came to me. I wondered whether your child-angel might not be the identical being about whom my poor dear mother went into such raptures. Good Lord! what a joke! By Jove!" "A joke!" growled Dacres. "I don't see any joke in it. I remember when you said that Biggs's nieces were at the bottom of your troubles, I asked whether it might be this one." "So you did, old chap; and I replied that I hoped not. So you need not shake your gory locks at me, my boy." "But I don't like the looks of it." "Neither do I." "Yes, but you see it looks as though she had been already set apart for you especially." "And pray, old man, what difference can that make, when I don't set myself apart for any thing of the kind?" Dacres sat in silence with a gloomy frown over his brow. "Besides, are you aware, my boy, of the solemn fact that Biggs's nieces are legion?" said Hawbury. "The man himself is an infernal old bloke; and as to his nieces--heavens and earth!--old! old as Methuselah; and as to this one, she must be a grandniece--a second generation. She's not a true, full-blooded niece. Now the lady I refer to was one of the original Biggs's nieces. There's no mistake whatever about that, for I have it in black and white, under my mother's own hand." "Oh, she would select the best of them for you." "No, she wouldn't. How do you know that?" "There's no doubt about that." "It depends upon what you mean by the best. The one _you_ call the best might not seem so to _her_, and so on. Now I dare say she's picked out for me a great, raw-boned, redheaded niece, with a nose like a horse. And she expects me to marry a woman like that! with a pace like a horse! Good Lord!" And Hawbury leaned back, lost in the immensity of that one overwhelming idea.