If you tell her the truth, which of course I should do did I tell her anything, my request is virtually frustrated, and I shall be the talk of the county.

You, I know, don't think telling fibs is immoral when it happens to be convenient, as it would be in this case.
I expect to be absent a year or eighteen months; if I prolong my travels it shall be in the way you proposed.

I will then take my place in polite society, call upon you to pay all expenses, and fib on my own account to any extent required by that world of fiction which is peopled by illusions and governed by shams.
Heaven bless you, my dear Father, and be quite sure that if I get into any trouble requiring a friend, it is to you I shall turn.

As yet I have no other friend on earth, and with prudence and good luck I may escape the infliction of any other friend.
Yours ever affectionately, KENELM.
P.S .-- Dear Father, I open my letter in your library to say again "Bless you," and to tell you how fondly I kissed your old beaver gloves, which I found on the table.
When Sir Peter came to that postscript he took off his spectacles and wiped them: they were very moist.
Then he fell into a profound meditation.

Sir Peter was, as I have said, a learned man; he was also in some things a sensible man, and he had a strong sympathy with the humorous side of his son's crotchety character.
What was to be said to Lady Chillingly?
That matron was quite guiltless of any crime which should deprive her of a husband's confidence in a matter relating to her only son.