friends in Essex to whom Mrs. Cash had mentioned the circumstance; of course she appeared to them in a very respectable light, because "Truth is a gem above all value.” As Lutterel Mortimer used to present little tokens of gratitude to the Baronet, Mrs. Mortimer had a topaz set in a ring, which the Colonel brought from the East Indies. She wrote to Sir Timothy, explaining her situation, and that she was recommended to set up a boarding-house for young gentlemen belonging to Westminster school, as it would give her an opportunity of educating her boys there, and that she was willing to engage in any way in which she could promote the welfare of her children; but that without a small sum to begin with, it was not practicable. She enclosed the ring in these lines: "On every side the threatening tempest lowers, Fated to feel those pangs I cannot cure; By return of post Mrs. Mortimer had this reply: Madam, The unparalleled and infamous way in which you have behaved deserved only from me the most severe and immediate punishment. When I first offered to put your hoy to school, you should not have let him gone to such an expensive school as Kensington. I knew not any other, but you might and ought to have found some school where boys of better prospects in life than he are educated at a third of the expence. Major Mwould have found Scotch schools, where he would have been well educated for even less. When after that I had thought of putting you, out of charity, in the way of earning a comfortable livelihood here, instead of gratitude for my munificent charity, your talking of having come here to superintend my concerns, was the most outrageous degree of folly, insolence, and wickedness. You have met with lenity you little deserved; if then you do not immediately give a clear and proper account of the way in which you have spent the sums received while here, I shall tell my steward and my solicitor that the sums they took upon themselves to advance you, without my order, they must proceed against you for. There was nearly three hundred pounds balance, beside the sums received from Mr. Abraham Modish, of which he has receipts, and with one hun dred and fifty, or two hundred pounds, you had from Mrs. Grant, as you have not paid your lodging nor the tradespeoples' bills you owe here, not even butchers' and bakers' bills, all of which you must have paid the year previous in London. You must have received five or six hundred more the year you was here than the year before in London, and of this, unless you immediately give a clear account, I shall desire my steward and my solicitor to settle matters directly with you, and the Brighton tradespeople will then flock to return you their thanks. I remain, &c. &c. T. FLIGHT. Mrs. Mortimer explained to Sir Timothy, that she never had the sums which he mentioned; that Mrs. Grant paid her ten pounds a month for the board and lodging of herself and black servant, consequently she could not be a gainer by her; and respecting placing her son at the Reverend Dr. Johns, that it was his particular request that the boy might be sent there. She also made an exact statement of all her pecuniary concerns, to which she received this answer. Madam, Brighton, 1810. You have only sent an account of thirty-six pounds, forty-five pounds, and forty pounds, amounting to one hundred and twenty-one pounds. You had better therefore send the receipts of what you paid here in a parcel; though as you have not paid lodging, butchers', or bakers' bills, it will not be easy to account for the balance of the sums you received from my solicitor and steward, amounting to above four hundred pounds. You are aware they would not be very unwilling, if I would permit them, to punish you as you deserve, with the most extreme severity. The only way to avoid this, is to make an immediate and accu |