A few letters then passed between the baronet and the clergyman as to Ardworth's future destiny; the latter owned that his pupil was not persevering enough for the Bar, nor steady enough for the Church.

These were no great faults in Sir Miles's eyes.

He resolved, after an effort, to judge himself of the capacities of the young man, and so came the invitation to Laughton.

Ardworth was greatly surprised when Fielden communicated to him this invitation, for hitherto he had not conceived the slightest suspicion of his benefactor; he had rather, and naturally, supposed that some relation of his father's had paid for his maintenance at the University, and he knew enough of the family history to look upon Sir Miles as the proudest of men.

How was it, then, that he, who would not receive the daughter of Dr.Mivers, his own niece, would invite the nephew of Dr.Mivers, who was no relation to him?
However, his curiosity was excited, and Fielden was urgent that he should go; to Laughton, therefore, had he gone.
We have now brought down to the opening of our narrative the general records of the family it concerns; we have reserved our account of the rearing and the character of the personage most important, perhaps, in the development of its events,--Lucretia Clavering,--in order to place singly before the reader the portrait of her dark, misguided, and ill-boding youth..