Mr. Lowndes saw nothing vulgar." 

 "Do I understand you to refer," said Mr. Walthew, bristling, "to the person who has done me the honour of calling upon me in connection with your affairs?" 

 "He is the only Mr. Lowndes I know." 

 "Then let me tell you, Mary, that his is not a name to conjure with in my hearing. I should say, however, that he is the last person to be a competent judge of vulgarity or—or other matters." 

 "Then you dislike him too?" cried poor Mrs. Ringrose. 

 "Do you?" said Mr. Walthew, turning to Harry; and uncle and nephew regarded one another for the first time with mutually interested eyes. 

 "Not I," said Harry stoutly. "He has been my mother's best friend." 

 "I am sorry to hear it," the clergyman said; "what's more, I don't believe it." 

 "But he has been and he is," insisted the lady; "you little know what he has done for me." 

 "I wouldn't trust his motives," said her brother. "I am sorry to say it, Mary; he is very glib and plausible, I know; but—he doesn't strike me as an honest man!" 

 Mrs. Ringrose was troubled and vexed, and took leave of the visitor with a face as sombre as his own; but as for Harry, he recalled his own feelings on the journey up, and he felt less out of sympathy with his uncle than he had ever done in his life before. But Mr. Walthew was not one to go without an irritating last word, and in the passage he had his chance. He had remarked on the packing cases, and Harry had dived into his mother's room and returned with an ostrich egg in each hand, of which he begged his uncle's acceptance, saying that he would send them by the parcels post. Mr. Walthew opened his eyes but shook his head. 

 "I could not dream of taking them from you," said he, "in—in your present circumstances, Henry." 

 "But I got them for nothing," said Harry, at once hurt and nettled. "I got a dozen of them, and any amount of assegais and things, all for love, when I was on the Zambesi. I should like you and my aunt to have something." 

 "Really I could not think of it; but, if I did, I certainly should not permit you to incur the expense of parcel postage." 

 "Pooh! uncle, it would only be 

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