As Frank read the first portion of this epistle, his affection for his
poor dear favourite nag returned in full force, and he felt all the
pangs of remorse for having parted with him; but when he came to the
latter part, to Lord Kilcullen's name, and the initials by which his
own Fanny was designated, he forgot all about horse and owner; became
totally regardless of thirteen, eleven, and six to one, and read on
hastily to the end; read it all again--then closed the letter, and
put it in his pocket, and remained for a considerable time in silent
contemplation, trying to make up his mind what he would do.

Nobody was with him as he opened his post-bag, which he took from the
messenger as the boy was coming up to the house; he therefore read his
letter alone, on the lawn, and he continued pacing up and down before
the house with a most perturbed air, for half an hour.

Kilcullen going to marry Fanny Wyndham! So, that was the cause of Lord
Cashel's singular behaviour--his incivility, and refusal to allow Frank
to see his ward. "What! to have arranged it all in twenty-four hours,"
thought Frank to himself; "to have made over his ward's money to his
son, before her brother, from whom she inherited it, was in his grave:
to determine at once to reject an accepted suitor for the sake of
closing on the poor girl's money--and without the slightest regard for
her happiness, without a thought for her welfare! And then, such lies,"
said the viscount, aloud, striking his heel into the grass in his angry
impetuosity; "such base, cruel lies!--to say that she had authorised
him, when he couldn't have dared to make such a proposal to her, and
her brother but two days dead. Well; I took him for a stiff-necked
pompous fool, but I never thought him such an avaricious knave." And
Fanny, too--could Fanny have agreed, so soon, to give her hand to
another? She could not have transferred her heart. His own dear, fond