I 'm sure you 'll not take it in ill part that I bring these things under your notice. Whether out of the balance in hand you will give me five hundred a year, or only three, I shall ever remain Your affectionate brother,
"Read that, Nelly," said Augustus, as he threw it across the table. "I 'm almost afraid to say what I think of it."
This was said as they sat in their little lodgings in the Rue des Moines; for the letter had been sent through an embassy bag, and consequently had been weeks on the road, besides lying a month on a tray in the Foreign Office till some idle lounger had taken the caprice to forward it.
"Her Majesty's Legation at Naples. Lord Culduff is there special, and Temple is acting as secretary to him."
"Oh, yes. She wants all the trunks and carriage-boxes which she left at Castello to be forwarded to town for transmission abroad. I don't think she remembers us much further. She hopes I will not have her old mare sold, but make arrangements for her having a free paddock for the rest of her life; and she adds that you ought to take the pattern of the slipper on her side-saddle, for if it should happen that you ever ride again, you 'll find it better than any they make now."
"Considerate, at all events. They tell us that love alone remembers trifles. Is n't this a proof of it, Gusty?"
"Read Temple now, and try to put me in better temper with him than I feel at this moment."
"I could n't feel angry with Temple," said she, quietly. "All he does and all he says so palpably springs from consideration of self, that it would be unjust to resent in him what one would not endure from another. In fact, he means no harm to any one, and a great deal of good to Temple Bramleigh."
"I have not said so; but it certainly would not irritate me."
She opened the letter after this and read it over leisurely.
"Well, and what do you say now, Nelly?" asked he.
"That it's Temple all over; he does not know why in this shipwreck every one is not helping to make a lifeboat for him. It seems such an obvious and natural thing to do that he regards the omission as scarcely credible."
"Does he not see--does he not care for the ruin that has overtaken us?"
"Yes, he sees it, and is very sorry for it; but he opines, at the same time, that the smallest amount of the disaster should fall to his share. Here's something very different," said she, taking a letter from her pocket. "This is from Julia. She writes from her little villa at Albano, and asks us to come and stay with them."