but later in the evening Peregrine was summoned to his mother's room, and she, with considerable hesitation and much diffidence, informed him of the coming nuptials.
'Marry Lady Mason!' he had said.
'Yes, Peregrine. Why should he not do so if they both wish it?'
Peregrine thought that there were many causes and impediments sufficiently just why no such marriage should take place, but he had not his arguments ready at his fingers' ends. He was so stunned by the intelligence that he could say but little about it on that occasion. By the few words that he did say, and by the darkness of his countenance, he showed plainly enough that he disapproved. And then his mother said all that she could in the baronet's favour, pointing out that in a pecuniary way Peregrine would receive benefit rather than injury.
'I'm not thinking of the money, mother.'
'No, my dear; but it is right that I should tell you how considerate your grandfather is.'
'All the same, I wish he would not marry this woman.'
'Woman, Peregrine! You should not speak in that way of a friend whom I dearly love.'
'She is a woman all the same.' And then he sat sulkily, looking at the fire. His own stress of sentiment did not admit of free discussion at the present moment, and was necessarily postponed. On that other affair he was told that his grandfather would be glad to see him on the following morning; and then he left his mother.
'Your grandfather, Peregrine, asked for my assent,' said Mrs. Orme; 'and I thought it right to give it.' This she said to make him understand that it was no longer in her power to oppose the match. And she was thoroughly glad that this was so, for she would have lacked the courage to oppose Sir Peregrine in anything.
On the next morning Peregrine saw his grandfather before breakfast. His mother came to his room door while he was dressing to whisper a word of caution to him. 'Pray, be courteous to him,' she said. 'Remember how good he is to you—to us both! Say that you congratulate him.'
'But I don't,' said Peregrine.
'Ah, but, Peregrine———'
'I'll tell you what I'll do, mother. I'll leave the house altogether and go away, if you wish it.'
'Oh, Peregrine! How can you speak in that way? But he's waiting now. Pray, pray, be kind in your manner to him.'
He descended with the same sort of feeling which had oppressed him on his return home after his encounter with Carroty Bob in Smithfield. Since then he had been on enduring good terms with
