"And pray, sir, who is the gentleman?" demanded Miss Beauchamp. "You know I have so many cousins, and uncles, and such distant relations, that I cannot be expected to remember them all, even when one of them commits a murder."
"Oh! it is very possible, so careless a young lady may have forgot him!" replied Lord Ashborough, somewhat piqued at the tone of her answer; "but you have seen him within this month--It is Captain William Delaware--the son of the man at Emberton, who has been cutting the throat of an old miser at--at--at--a place called Ryebury--I think it is."
Miss Beauchamp turned very pale, but, without reply, raised the coffee-cup towards her lips. Ere it reached them, however, it dropped from her hand, and dashed some of the china to pieces by its fall, while the young lady herself sank back, fainting in her chair, much to the horror and consternation of every one present. Lord Ashborough started up, and advanced to his niece's assistance; Mr. ---- kneeled by her side, and supported her head; while Colonel ----, who was a tall stiff man, rose up, like the geni coming out of the copper vessel--that is to say, by degrees--and rang the bell.
Miss Beauchamp was conveyed speedily to her own room; and the excellent Colonel exclaimed, "Why, Ashborough, this murder which your cousin has committed, seems to affect Miss Beauchamp more than yourself!"
"I had forgot," replied Lord Ashborough, "that she and her brother were almost brought up with those Delawares in their childhood. As to myself, the matter does not affect me at all, Colonel--I always thought that some catastrophe of the kind would take place. The father--who was both at school and at college with me--was always one of those violent, ruthless, unprincipled men, on whose conduct you could never calculate; and as he was generally in scrapes and difficulties, you know, temptation might assail him at any moment. The son seemed, from the little I have ever seen of him, a boy of the same disposition. Heaven knows," he added, with an air of modest candour, "I acted in as liberal a manner as possible towards them! It was only the other day that I accepted a mere trifle, in lieu of an annuity of two thousand a-year which I held, payable upon their estates."
"Scamps!" said the Colonel, walking towards the window. "One never makes any thing of scamps. When one has any poor relations--and I suppose every one has some--the best way is to cut them at once--one never makes any thing of scamps!"
"Mr. Tims, my lord, waiting in the library," said a servant entering, just as the Colonel concluded his sensible, comprehensive, and charitable observation.
"Not the ghost of the murdered man, I hope!" cried Mr. ----, who had been reading the report of the coroner's inquest.
"No; but the body of his nephew, I suppose," replied Lord Ashborough. "You had better try the billiard-room, gentlemen, as the day is so bad;" and he proceeded to the library, where he was awaited by Mr. Peter Tims, dressed in what the newspapers call a suit of decent mourning, with a countenance made to match, according to the tailor's term.
Lord Ashborough nodded, and Mr. Tims bowed low as they met; and the peer, letting himself sink into an easy-chair, began the conversation by saying, "I suppose, Mr. Tims, I must condole with you on your uncle's death?"