“To you, sir!—the name, if you please?”
“To—to—to C—— L——,” said the youth; “the initials C. L., to be left till called for.”
“Yes, sir, we have some luggage; came last night by the van; and a letter besides, sir, to C. L. also.”
The daughter lifted her large dark eyes at the handsome stranger, and felt a wonderful curiosity to know what the letter to C. L. could possibly be about; meanwhile mine hostess, raising her hand to a shelf on which stood an Indian slop-basin, the great ornament of the bar at the Golden Fleece, brought from its cavity a well-folded and well-sealed epistle.
“That is it,” cried the youth; “show me a private room instantly.”
“What can he want a private room for?” thought the landlady’s daughter.
“Show the gentleman to the Griffin, No. 4, John Merrylack,” said the landlady herself.
With an impatient step the owner of the letter followed a slipshod and marvellously unwashed waiter into No. 4,—a small square asylum for town travellers, country yeomen, and “single gentlemen;” presenting, on the one side, an admirable engraving of the Marquis of Granby, and on the other an equally delightful view of the stable-yard.
Mr. C. L. flung himself on a chair (there were only four chairs in No. 4), watched the waiter out of the room, seized his letter, broke open the seal, and read—yea, reader, you shall read it too—as follows:—
“Enclosed is the sum to which you are entitled; remember, that it is all which you can ever claim at my hands; remember also that you have made the choice which now nothing can persuade me to alter. Be the name you have so long iniquitously borne henceforth and always forgotten; upon that condition you may yet hope from my generosity the future assistance which you must want, but which you could not ask from my affection. Equally by my heart and my reason you are forever DISOWNED.”