you;--everything is smiling with you! Let us
talk about your plans."

"Another time will do for that. I had come to hear about your own
affairs."

"There they are," she said, pointing round the room. "I have no other
affairs. You see that I am going from here."

"And where are you going?" She shook her head. "With whom will you
live?"

"With Miss Cass,--two old maids together! I know nothing further."

"But about money? That is if I am justified in asking."

"What would you not be justified in asking? Do you not know that I
would tell you every secret of my heart,--if my heart had a secret?
It seems that I have given up what was to have been my fortune. There
was a claim of L12,000 on Grex. But I have abandoned it."

"And there is nothing?"

"There will be scrapings they tell me,--unless Percival refuses to
agree. This house is mortgaged, but not for its value. And there are
some jewels. But all that is detestable,--a mere grovelling among
mean hundreds; whereas you,--you will soar among--"

"Oh Mabel! do not say hard things to me."

"No, indeed! why should I,--I who have been preaching that
comfortable doctrine of hypocrisy? I will say nothing hard. But I
would sooner talk of your good things than of my evil ones."

"I would not."

"Then you must talk about them for my sake. How was it that the Duke
came round at last?"

"I hardly know. She sent for me."

"A fine high-spirited girl. These Pallisers have more courage about
them than one expects from their outward manner. Silverbridge has
plenty of it."

"I remember telling you he could be obstinate."

"And I remember that I did not believe you. Now I know it. He has the
sort of pluck which enables a man to break a girl's heart,--or to
destroy a girl's hopes,--without wincing. He can tell a girl to her
face that she can go to the--mischief for him. There are so many men
who can't do that, from cowardice, though their hearts be ever so
well inclined. 'I have changed my mind.' There is something great in
the courage of a man who can say that to a woman in so many words.
Most of them, when they escape, escape by lies and subterfuges. Or
they run away and won't allow themselves to be heard of. They trust
to a chapter of accidents, and leave things to arrange themselves.
But when a man can look a girl in the face with those seemingly soft
eyes, and say with that seemingly soft mouth,--'I have changed my
mind,'--though she would look him dead in return i