fall on your
neck for it, you would still refuse, would you not?'

Janet answered softly: 'I believe so.'

'Then, good-bye,' said I.

That feminine softness and its burden of unalterable firmness pulled me
two ways, angering me all the more that I should feel myself susceptible
to a charm which came of spiritual rawness rather than sweetness; for
she needed not to have made the answer in such a manner; there was pride
in it; she liked the soft sound of her voice while declaring herself
invincible: I could see her picturing herself meek but fixed.

'Will you go, Harry? Will you not take Riversley?' she said.

I laughed.

'To spare you the repetition of the dilemma?'

'No, Harry; but this might be done.'

'But--my fullest thanks to you for your generosity: really! I speak in
earnest: it would be decidedly against your grandada's wishes, seeing
that he left the Grange to you, and not to me.'

'Grandada's wishes! I cannot carry out all his wishes,' she sighed.

'Are you anxious to?'

We were on the delicate ground, as her crimson face revealed to me that
she knew as well as I.

I, however, had little delicacy in leading her on it. She might well
feel that she deserved some wooing.

I fancied she was going to be overcome, going to tremble and show
herself ready to fall on my bosom, and I was uncertain of the amount of
magnanimity in store there.

She replied calmly, 'Not immediately.'

'You are not immediately anxious to fulfil his wishes?'

'Harry, I find it hard to do those that are thrust on me.'

'But, as a matter of serious obligation, you would hold yourself bound
by and by to perform them all?'

'I cannot speak any further of my willingness, Harry.'

'The sense of duty is evidently always sufficient to make you act upon
the negative--to deny, at least?'

'Yes, I daresay,' said Janet.

We shook hands like a pair of commercial men.

I led my father to Bulsted. He was too feverish to remain there. In the
evening, after having had a fruitless conversation with my aunt Dorothy
upon the event of the day, I took him to London that he might visit
his lawyers, who kindly consented to treat him like doctors, when I had
arranged to make over to them three parts of my annuity, and talked of
his Case encouragingly; the effect of which should not have astonished
me. He closed a fit of reverie resembling his drowsiness, by exclaiming:
'Richie will be indebted to his dad for his place in the world after