His mother, the Countess de Brantefield, was a Countess in her own right,
and had an estate in her own power;--his father, a simple commoner, was
dead, his mother was his sole guardian.

"That mother of mine," said he to us, "would not hear of her son's being
_turned out_--so I must set my head to work against the head of the head
master, who is at this present moment inditing a letter to her ladyship,
beginning, no doubt, with, '_I am sorry to be obliged to take up my pen_,'
or, '_I am concerned to be under the necessity of sitting down to inform
your ladyship_.' Now I must make haste and inform my lady mother of the
truth with my own pen, which luckily is the pen of a ready writer. You will
see," continued he, "how cleverly I will get myself out of the scrape with
her. I know how to touch her up. There's a folio, at home, of old
Manuscript Memoirs of the De Brantefield family, since the time of the
flood, I believe: it's the only book my dear mother ever looks into; and
she has often made me read it to her, till--no offence to my long line of
ancestry--I cursed it and them; but now I bless it and them for supplying
my happy memory with a case in point, that will just hit my mother's fancy,
and, of course, obtain judgment in my favour. A case, in the reign of
Richard the Second, between a Jew and my great, great, great, six times
great grandfather, whom it is sufficient to name to have all the blood of
all the De Brantefields up in arms for me against all the Jews that ever
were born. So my little Jacob, I have you."

Mowbray, accordingly, wrote to his mother what he called a _chef-d'oeuvre_
of a letter, and next post came an answer from Lady de Brantefield with the
money to pay her son's debt, and, as desired and expected, a strong reproof
to her son for his folly in ever dealing with a Jew. How could he possibly
expect not to be cheated, as, by his own confession, it appeared he had