"But it has gone on. You tell me that he has already written. Do you think it proper that you should correspond with a young man of whom I do not approve?" Florence endeavored to reflect whether she did think it proper or not. She thought it quite proper that she should love Harry Annesley with all her heart, but was not quite sure as to the correspondence. "At any rate, you must understand," continued Mrs. Mountjoy, "that I will not permit it. All letters, while we are abroad, must be brought to me; and if any come from him they shall be sent back to him. I do not wish to open his letters, but you cannot be allowed to receive them. When we are at Brussels I shall consult your uncle upon the subject. I am very sorry, Florence, that there should be this cause of quarrel between us; but it is your doing."
"I am hard, because I will not allow you to accept a young man who has, I believe, behaved very badly, and who has got nothing of his own."
"We know what that may come to. Mountjoy was his father's heir; and nothing could be entailed more strictly than Tretton. We know what entails have come to there. Mr. Prosper will find some way of escaping from it. Entails go for nothing now; and I hear that he thinks so badly of his nephew that he has already quarrelled with him. And he is quite a young man himself. I cannot think how you can be so foolish,--you, who declared that you are throwing your cousin over because he is no longer to have all his father's property."
"I never allowed it to be said in my name that I was engaged to my cousin Mountjoy."
"Very well, I will never allow it to be said in my name that with my consent you are engaged to Mr. Henry Annesley."
Six or seven days after this they were settled together most uncomfortably in a hotel at Boulogne. Mrs. Mountjoy had gone there because there was no other retreat to which she could take her daughter, and because she had resolved to remove her from beyond the sphere of Harry Annesley's presence. She had at first thought of Ostend; but it had seemed to her that Ostend was within the kingdom reigned over by Sir Magnus and that there would be some impropriety in removing from thence to the capital in which Sir Magnus was reigning. It was as though you were to sojourn for three days at the park-gates before you were entertained at the mansion. Therefore they stayed at Boulogne, and Mrs. Mountjoy tried the bathing, cold as the water was with equinoctial gales, in order that there might be the appearance of a reason for her being at Boulogne. And for company's sake, in the hope of maintaining some fellowship with her mother, Florence bathed also. "Mamma, he has not written again," said Florence, coming up one day from the stand.