Such was the state of affairs, when I
experienced the necessity to which I have alluded.
My state of dependence was too absurd.
Accordingly, one fine morning, I resolved to
make a bold stroke for my emancipation;—

"Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow;"—
and the blow that I proposed to strike was, to
induce my guardian to sign a certain deed
which would have the effect of placing a
considerable portion of my property at my own
disposal.

I knew that to effect this object, a letter
would be useless. To tell the truth, I had
already gone through the epistolary phase of
supplication in all its varieties. I had tried
every style:—the dutiful, the jocular, the
insinuating, the desperate, the menacing,
and the conciliatory, after the most approved
models. I had invested fanciful friends with
imaginary necessities, and expressed most
philanthropic wishes to relieve them; I had
contracted impossible debts at games which
I never played in my life (" for the last time,
on my honour as a gentleman"); I had even
found sudden necessities for large sums to
enable me to prosecute my studies by
expensive additions to my library—which happened
to be singularly complete—all to no purpose.

I now mustered up courage to make my
"last appeal" and this appeal I determined
to make in person. I have said that I was
a stranger to my guardian and to his
establishment; but they were old friends of my
family; and I had moreover been in the
receipt, for several years past, of that
unmeaning civility known as a " general
invitation." This was sufficient; and behold me
ostentatiously driving up to the house one
morning, supplied with baggage enough to
stand a campaign of six months.

The " people of the house " upon whom I
had so desperately intruded, maintained the
reputation, during their short visits to London,
amongst my set, of being " crack people." I
accordingly expected to be received with a
certain ducal magnificence; which, however,
I was subsequently given to understand, had
not been known in the house since the time
of some mysterious " old Sir Walter " about
whom nobody knew anything in particular,
and whom I strongly suspect to be a myth.

The fact was, that though coming from
the old Norman family of De Musherewin,
my entertainers were a very plain, homely
family, with —as far as the master of the
house was concerned—not much more pride
than can be considered appropriate when
one has nothing to be proud of.

As for the lady, the case was somewhat
different. She had a great notion about
keeping up "the dignity of the family;"
and I know I annoyed her mortally by the
abruptness of my descent,—" taking them
quite unprepared,"—as I heard her say to
one of the servants, in giving directions about
my room. This lady was the only person
from whom I heard anything of the apocryphal
" old Sir Walter " the mystery about
whom I have never been able to clear up,
owing to Burke having, most unpardonably,
forgotten to mention the family, in his History
of the Landed Gentry.

But the most interesting member of the
family— to me—was a cousin of Mrs. de
Musherewin, considerably better looking
than that lady, and enjoying besides the
additional advantages of blue eyes and only
nineteen summers. She was inclined to be
sentimental, and had just enough sense of the
ridiculous (which I take to be sense of a very
high kind) to be somewhat ashamed of it.
Altogether, she was what her friends called
"a riddle," and suited me capitally; so we
became excellent friends at first sight. Moreover,
her name was Amy; and I need not
say how great an attraction a lady of that
name is to a young gentleman addicted
to quoting "Locksley Hall." You may be
sure, then, that in my readings of Tennyson
—which were conducted with due decorum
in the back drawing-room—the allusions to
the " cousin shallow-hearted" and the " Amy,
mine no more," excited their due degrees
of confusion, and contributed their share
to a mutual good understanding.

At an early period of my visit I had
broken its object to the old gentleman,
but without immediate success. He
considered my allowance amply sufficient; he
had no idea of young men persisting in being
young men; he acted for my good,—and so
forth. After ten days' stay in the house, I
began to think the case hopeless, and made
up my mind to return to town. I should
have done so immediately but for the
"shallow-hearted cousin " who having, it seems,
gained some inkling of my plans, advised me,
in confidence, to " wait a little longer," under
a promise, made somewhat mysteriously, that
she would try " to arrange it for me." To
tell the truth, I did not feel reluctant to find
an excuse for remaining; and it was fortunate
that I did so; for the next morning an incident
occurred which was destined to have
some influence upon the success of my plans.

I must premise that the De Musherewin
domestics were to me a most mysterious
race. There were only a couple of men who
might be considered as in attendance upon the
family; the footman and the coachman. The
family drove nothing more ostentatious than
a Brougham; and the services of the footman
were, therefore, confined to waiting at
table, and to in-door duties. Then there
was a gardener, who seemed to exercise his
vocation only very early in the morning
before the family were up; but whom I saw
constantly so employed, when I have risen
at unholy hours for the purpose of reading or
walking.

At such times I have frequently seen this
gardener in conversation with a young—no,
not a lady; and yet she was scarcely so low