ger.

Mr. Carlyle's brow flushed, but he controlled his temper.

"No," he calmly replied. "I am not afraid of that in the one I have now
chosen."

Miss Corny gathered her knitting together, he had picked up her box. Her
hands trembled, and the lines of her face were working. It was a blow to
her as keen as the other had been.

"Pray who is it that you have chosen?" she jerked forth. "The whole
neighborhood has been after you."

"Let it be who it will, Cornelia, you will be sure to grumble. Were I
to say that it was a royal princess, or a peasant's daughter, you would
equally see grounds for finding fault."

"Of course I should. I know who it is--that stuck-up Louisa Dobede."

"No, it is not. I never had the slightest intention of choosing Louisa
Dobede, nor she of choosing me. I am marrying to please myself, and, for
a wife, Louisa Dobede would not please me."

"As you did before," sarcastically put in Miss Corny.

"Yes; as I did before."

"Well, can't you open your mouth and say who it is?" was the exasperated
rejoinder.

"It is Barbara Hare."

"Who?" shrieked Miss Carlyle.

"You are not deaf, Cornelia."

"Well, you _are_ an idiot!" she exclaimed, lifting up her hands and
eyes.

"Thank you," he said, but without any signs of irritation.

"And so you are; _you are_, Archibald. To suffer that girl, who has been
angling after you so long, to catch you at last."

"She has not angled after me; had she done so, she would probably never
have been Mrs. Carlyle. Whatever passing fancy she may have entertained
for me in earlier days, she has shown no symptoms of it of late years;
and I am quite certain that she had no more thought or idea that I
should choose her for my second wife, than you had I should choose you.
Others have angled after me too palpably, but Barbara has not."

"She is a conceited minx, as vain as she is high."

"What else have you to urge against her?"

"I would have married a girl without a slur, if I must have married,"
aggravatingly returned Miss Corny.

"Slur?"

"Slur, yes. Dear me, is it an honor--the possessing a brother such as
Richard?"

Miss Corny sniffed. "Pigs may fly; but I never saw them try at it."

"The next consideration, Cornelia, is about your residence. You will go
back, I presume, to your own home."

Miss Corny did not believe her own ears. "Go back to my own home!" she
exclaimed. "I shall do nothing of the sort. I shall stop at East Lynne.
What's to hinde