in life, depends upon her conduct, perhaps you may bring her by degrees
to consent to a private marriage. She is young, inexperienced,
enthusiastic, romantic. She loves her father devotedly, and would make
any sacrifice for him."

"No great sacrifice, I should think, madam," replied Mr. Shanks, "to
marry a handsome young man who has a just claim to a large fortune."

"That is as people may judge," replied the lady; "but at all events this
claim gives us a hold upon her which we must not fail to use, and that
directly. I will contrive means of bringing them together. I will make
opportunity for the lad, but you must instruct him how to use it
properly. All I can do is to co-operate without appearing."

"But, my dear madam, I really do not fully understand," said Mr. Shanks.
"I had a fancy--a sort of imagination like, that you wished--that you
desired----"

He hesitated; but Mrs. Hazleton would not help him by a single word, and
at last he added, "I had a fancy that you wished this suit to go on
against Sir Philip Hastings, and now--but that does not matter--only do
you really wish to bring it all to an end, to settle it by a marriage
between John and Mistress Emily?'

"That will be the pleasantest, the easiest way of settling it, sir,"
replied Mrs. Hazleton, coolly; "and I do not at all desire to injure,
but rather to serve Sir Philip and his family."

That was false, for though to marry Emily Hastings to any one but Mr.
Marlow was what the lady did very sincerely desire; yet there was a long
account to be settled with Sir Philip Hastings which could not well be
discharged without a certain amount of injury to him and his. The lady
was well aware, too, that she had told a lie, and moreover that it was
one which Mr. Shanks was not at all likely to believe. Perhaps even she
did not quite wish him to believe it, and at all events she knew that
her actions must soon give it contradiction. But men make strange
distinctions between speech and action, not to be accounted for without
long investigation and disquisition. There are cases where people shrink
from defining in words their purposes, or giving voice to their
feelings, even when they are prepared by acts to stamp them for
eternity. There are cases where men do acts which they dare not cover by
a lie.

Mrs. Hazleton sought for no less than the ruin of Sir Philip Hastings;
she had determined it in her own heart, and yet she would not own it to
her agent--perhaps