right, and your father could
give you a thousand a year to live on without feeling it, and if your
eldest child would be cock-sure of Greshamsbury, it might be very
well that you should please yourself as to marrying at once. But
that's not the case; and yet Greshamsbury is too good a card to be
flung away."

"I could fling it away to-morrow," said Frank.

"Ah! you think so," said Harry the Wise. "But if you were to hear
to-morrow that Sir Louis Scatcherd were master of the whole place,
and be d---- to him, you would feel very uncomfortable." Had Harry
known how near Sir Louis was to his last struggle, he would not have
spoken of him in this manner. "That's all very fine talk, but it
won't bear wear and tear. You do care for Greshamsbury if you are the
fellow I take you to be: care for it very much; and you care too for
your father being Gresham of Greshamsbury."

"This won't affect my father at all."

"Ah, but it will affect him very much. If you were to marry Miss
Thorne to-morrow, there would at once be an end to any hope of your
saving the property."

"And do you mean to say I'm to be a liar to her for such reasons as
that? Why, Harry, I should be as bad as Moffat. Only it would be ten
times more cowardly, as she has no brother."

"I must differ from you there altogether; but mind, I don't mean to
say anything. Tell me that you have made up your mind to marry her,
and I'll stick to you through thick and thin. But if you ask my
advice, why, I must give it. It is quite a different affair to that
of Moffat's. He had lots of tin, everything he could want, and there
could be no reason why he should not marry,--except that he was a
snob, of whom your sister was well quit. But this is very different.
If I, as your friend, were to put it to Miss Thorne, what do you
think she would say herself?"

"She would say whatever she thought best for me."

"Exactly: because she is a trump. And I say the same. There can be no
doubt about it, Frank, my boy: such a marriage would be very foolish
for you both; very foolish. Nobody can admire Miss Thorne more than
I do; but you oughtn't to be a marrying man for the next ten years,
unless you get a fortune. If you tell her the truth, and if she's the
girl I take her to be, she'll not accuse you of being false. She'll
peak for a while; and so will you, old chap. But others have had to
do that before you. They have got over it, and so will you."

Such was the spoken wisdom of Har