only press you for your own good," answered the Baronet, not at all
moved, "you are perhaps not aware that if this gentleman's claim is
just, and you resist it, the whole costs will fall upon you. All that
could be expected of him was to submit his claim to arbitration, but he
now does more; he proposes, if arbitration pronounce it just, to make
sacrifices of his legal rights to the amount of many thousand pounds. He
is not bound to refund one penny paid for this estate, he is entitled to
back rents for a considerable number of years, and yet he offers to
repay the money, and far from demanding the back rents, to make
compensation for any loss of interest that may have been sustained by
this investment. There are few men in England, let me tell you, who
would have made such a proposal, and if you refuse it you will never
have such another."

"Do not you think, Sir Philip," asked Mrs. Hazleton sharply, "that he
never would have made such a proposal if he had not known there was
something wrong about his title?"

Now there was something in this question which doubly provoked Sir
Philip Hastings. He never could endure a habit which some ladies have of
recurring continually to points previously disposed of, and covering the
reiteration by merely putting objections in a new form. Now the question
as to the validity of Mr. Marlow's title, he looked upon as entirely
disposed of by the proposal of investigation and arbitration. But there
was something more than this; the very question which the lady put
showed an incapacity for conceiving any generous motive, which
thoroughly disgusted him, and, turning with a quiet step to the window,
he looked down upon the lawn which spread far away between two ranges of
tall fine wood, glowing in the yellow sunshine of a dewy autumnal
morning. It was the most favorable thing he could have done for Mrs.
Hazleton. Even the finest and the strongest and the stoutest minds are
more frequently affected unconsciously by external things than any one
is aware of. The sweet influences or the irritating effects of fine or
bad weather, of beautiful or tame scenery, of small cares and petty
disappointments, of pleasant associations or unpleasant memories, nay of
a thousand accidental circumstances, and even fancies themselves, will
affect considerations totally distinct and apart, as the blue or yellow
panes of a stained glass window cast a melancholy hue or a yellow
splendor upon the statue and carvin