ain
she looked as though endeavouring to tell all she could without
breaking her promise.

"He is one of our Devonshire baronets," said Cecilia, "and of course
we like to stand by our own. At any rate he is going to ask us to
dinner."

"We cannot dine with him."

"That's as you please. I don't want to dine with him."

"I look upon it as very impertinent. He knows that I should not dine
with him. There has never been any actual quarrel, but there has been
no acquaintance."

"The acquaintance has been on my part," said Cecilia, who felt
that at every word she uttered she made the case worse for herself
hereafter.

"When a woman marries, she has to put up with her husband's friends,"
said Mr. Western gravely.

"He is nothing on earth to me. I never wish to see him again as long
as I live."

"It is unfortunate that he should have turned out to be so near a
neighbour," said Miss Altifiorla. Then for the moment Sir Francis
Geraldine was allowed to be forgotten.

"I did not like to say it before her," he said afterwards in their
own room;--and now Cecilia was able to observe that his manner was
altogether altered,--"but to tell the truth that man behaved very
badly to me myself. I know nothing about racing, but my cousin, poor
Jack Western, did. When he died, there was some money due to him by
Sir Francis, and I, as his executor, applied for it. Sir Francis
answered that debts won by dead men were not payable. But Jack had
been alive when he won this, and it should have been paid before. I
know nothing about debts of honour as they are called, but I found
out that the money should have been paid."

"What was the end of it?" asked Cecilia.

"I said no more about it. The money would have come into my pocket
and I could afford to lose it. But Sir Francis must know what I think
of the transaction, and, knowing it, ought not to talk of asking me
to dinner."

"But that was swindling."

"For the matter of that it's all swindling as far as I can see. One
strives to get the money out of another man's pocket by some juggling
arrangement. For myself I cannot understand how a gentleman can
condescend to wish to gain another man's money. But I leave that all
alone. It is so; and when I meet a man who is on the turf as they
call it, I keep my own feelings to myself. He has his own laws of
conduct and I have mine. But here is a man who does not obey his own
laws; and puts money in his pocket by breaking them. He can do as