with those of other people: rich uncle, maiden aunt, and sporting
nephews, all joined in requesting his stay from week to week; while
three successive notes were in turn committed to the card-bracket on
Charles Lacy's mantelpiece.

'Harry, my boy,' said that gay gentleman, as they stood looking at a
passing train, 'what do you say to a run for London? I have another
uncle there--a first-rate solicitor in the firm of Grindley, Blackmore,
& Co. Ours is a legal family. Grindley and the old hen would be glad to
see us; and I'll introduce you to the Blackmores, a delightful mother
and four daughters; all charming girls with three thousand a piece. I
wish you could only hear Clementina Blackmore sing _Will you still be
true to me?_ Harry, if ever I am so left to myself as to think of
marrying, that's the girl!'

Let us now suppose that a quantity of additional pressing took
place--that the nephews offered to go along as Christmas was
coming--that Harry sent home another note to say 'he thought he might
go'--and that long before it reached the cottage, he was installed at
the house of Mr Grindley in London, who, as his nephew promised, divided
a capital legal business with his partner Mr Blackmore.

The proverb which says, 'Out of sight out of mind,' was by this time in
course of being fulfilled as regarded the good woman at the cottage. In
the revival of old associations his college-friend partially forgot that
Harry was a family man, and the easy gentleman himself never thought of
intruding the circumstance on people's notice. To do him justice, he had
a remarkably single look; all his acquaintances called him Harry Phipps.
It was therefore no marvel that the unsuspecting household of Blackmore
received him as a bachelor.