Hearing these decisive and terrible words, Lady Macbeth, who had been

waiting for a sign of weakness or vacillation on the part of her

son-in-law, rose and, with a scared look, left the library. Lady Jane

looked up to her husband as if she would fain follow and soothe her

mamma, but Pitt forbade his wife to move.

"She won't go away," he said. "She has let her house at Brighton and

has spent her last half-year's dividends. A Countess living at an inn

is a ruined woman. I have been waiting long for an opportunity--to

take this--this decisive step, my love; for, as you must perceive, it

is impossible that there should be two chiefs in a family: and now, if

you please, we will resume the dictation. 'My dear brother, the

melancholy intelligence which it is my duty to convey to my family must

have been long anticipated by,'" &c.

In a word, Pitt having come to his kingdom, and having by good luck, or

desert rather, as he considered, assumed almost all the fortune which

his other relatives had expected, was determined to treat his family

kindly and respectably and make a house of Queen's Crawley once more.

It pleased him to think that he should be its chief. He proposed to

use the vast influence that his commanding talents and position must

speedily acquire for him in the county to get his brother placed and

his cousins decently provided for, and perhaps had a little sting of

repentance as he thought that he was the proprietor of all that they

had hoped for. In the course of three or four days' reign his bearing

was changed and his plans quite fixed: he determined to rule justly

and honestly, to depose Lady Southdown, and to be on the friendliest

possible terms with all the relations of his blood.

So he dictated a letter to his brother Rawdon--a solemn and elaborate

letter, containing the profoundest observations, couched in the longest

words, and filling with wonder the simple little secretary, who wrote

under her husband's order. "What an orator this will be," thought she,

"when he enters the House of Commons" (on which point, and on the

tyranny of Lady Southdown, Pitt had sometimes dropped hints to his wife

in bed); "how wise and good, and what a genius my husband is! I

fancied him a little cold; but how good, and what a genius!"

The fact is, Pitt Crawley had got every word of the letter by heart and

had studied it, with diplomatic secrecy, deeply and perfectly, long

before he thought fit to communicate it to his astonished wife.

This letter, with a huge black border and seal, was accordingly

despatched by Sir Pitt Crawley to his brother the Colonel, in London.

Rawdon Crawley was but half-pleased at the receipt of it. "What's the

use of going down to that stupid place?" thought he. "I can't stand

being alone with Pitt after dinner, and horses there and back will cost

us twenty pound."




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