“Yes, Sir Ernest.”
Ernest moved impatiently.
“Confound that fellow, with his everlasting ‘Sir Ernest’!”
“What, haven’t you got used to your handle yet?”
“No, I haven’t, and I wish it were at Jericho, and that is a fact. It is all your fault, Jeremy. If you had not told that confoundedly garrulous little doctor, who went and had the information printed in the Natal Mercury, it would never have come out at all. I could have dropped the title in England; but now all these people know that I am Sir Ernest, and Sir Ernest I shall remain for the rest of my days.”
“Well, most people would not think that such a dreadful misfortune.”
“Yes, they would, if they had happened to shoot the real heir. By the way, what did the lawyer say in his letter? As we are so near home, I suppose I had better post myself up. You will find it in the despatch-box. Read it, there’s a good fellow.”
Jeremy opened the box, battered with many years of travel, and searched about for the letter. It contained a curious collection of articles, prominent among which was a handkerchief, which once belonged to Eva Ceswick; a long tress of chestnut hair tied up with a blue ribbon; ditto of golden, which had come—well, not from Eva’s locks; a whole botanical collection of dead flowers, tender souvenirs of goodness knows who, for, after awhile, these accumulated dried specimens are difficult to identify; and many letters and other curiosities.
At last Jeremy came to the desired document, written in a fair clerk’s hand; and having shovelled back the locks of hair, &c., began to read it aloud:
St. Ethelred’s Court, Poultry,