I do not wish to impose upon you the wearisome task of reading all that passed between my Lord and myself. The whole correspondence would fill a blue book, and be about as amusing as such folios usually are. I 'll spare you, therefore, the steps of the negotiation, and merely give you the heads of the treaty:—

"Firstly, Mr. G. H., by reason and in virtue of certain compensations to be hereafter stated, binds himself to consider Mrs. G. H. in all respects as before her meeting K. I. D., regarding her with the same feelings of esteem, love, and affection as before that event, and treating her with the same 'distinguished consideration.'

"Secondly, K. I. D., on his part, agrees to give acceptances for two thousand pounds sterling, with interest at the rate of five per cent per annum on same till the time of payment. The dates to be at the convenience of K. I. D., always provided that the entire payment be completed within the term of five years from the present day.

"Thirdly, K. I. D. pledges his word of honor never to dispute or contest his liability to the above debt, by any unworthy subterfuge, such as 'no value,' 'intimidation used,' or any like artifice, legal or otherwise, but accepts these conditions in all the frankness of a gentleman."

Here follow the signatures and seals of the high contracting parties, with those of a host of witnesses on both sides. Brief as the articles read, they occupied several days in the discussion of them, during which Hampton retired to a village in the neighborhood, it not being deemed "etiquette" for us to inhabit the same town until the terms of a treaty had laid down our respective positions. These were my Lord's ideas, and you can infer from them the punctilious character of the whole negotiation. Lord Harvey dined and supped with me every day, breakfasting at Schweinstock with his principal. I thought, indeed, when all was finally settled, between us, that G. H. and I might have met and dined together as friends; but my Lord negatived the notion strongly. "Come, come, Dodd, you must n't be too hard upon poor Gore; it is not generous." And although, Tom, I cannot see the force of the observation, I felt bound to yield to it, rather than appear in any invidious or unamiable light. I, consequently, never met him during his stay in the neighborhood.

Lord Harvey left this, about ten days ago, for Dresden. We parted the very best of friends, for with all his zeal for G. H., I must say that he behaved handsomely to me throughout; and in the matter of the bills, he at once yielded to my making the first for £500, at nine months, though he assured me it would be a great convenience to his friend if I could have said "six." I should have quitted this to join the family on the same day; but when I came to pay the hotel bill, I found that the dinners and champagne during the week of diplomacy had not left me five dollars remaining, so that I have been detained by sheer necessity; and partly by my own will, and partly by my host's sense of caution, my daily life has been gradually despoiled of its little enjoyments, till I find myself in the narrow circumstances of which this letter makes mention at the opening.

From beginning to end, it would be difficult to imagine a more unlucky incident; nor do I believe that any man ever got less for two thousand pounds since the world began. You cannot say a severe thing to me that I have not said to myself; you cannot appeal to my age and my habits with a more sneering insolence than I am daily in the habit of doing; your very bitterest vituperations would be mild in comparison to one of my own soliloquies, so that, as a matter of surplusage, spare me all abuse, and rather devote your loose ingenuities to assisting me out of my great embarrassments.

I know well, that if we don't discover a gold-mine at Dodsborough, or fall upon a coal-shaft near Bruff, that I have no possible prospect to pay these bills; but as the first of them is nine months off, there is no such pressing emergency. The immediate necessity is, to send me enough to leave this place, and join Mrs. D. and the family. Write to me, therefore, at once, with a remittance, and mention where they are,—if still at Bonn, where I left them.

You had also better write to Mrs. D.; in what strain, and to what purport, I must leave to your own ingenuity. As for myself, I know no more how to meet her, nor what mood to assume, than if I wore about to enter the cage of one of Van Amburgh's lions. Now I fancy that maybe a contrite, broken-hearted look would be best; and now I rather lean to the bold, courageous, overbearing tone! Heaven direct me to what is best, for I never felt myself so much in want of guidance!

When you write to me, be brief; don't worry me with details of home, and inflict me with one of your national epistles about famine, and fever, and faction fights. I have no pity for anybody but myself just now, and I care no more for what's doing in Tipperary than if it was Canton. It will be time enough when I join the others to speculate upon whither we shall turn our steps, but my present thoughts tend to going back to Dodsborough. I wish from my soul that we had never left it, nor embarked in this infernal crusade after high society, education, and grandeur,—the vain pursuit of which leaves me to write myself, as I now do, your most miserable and melancholy friend,