ust that I should tell you this also; that as far
as I can see at present I have no reason to hope that she will do
so."

"Oh, Frank, the girl is doing all she can to catch you," said Lady
Arabella,--not prudently.

"No, mother; there you wrong her altogether; wrong her most cruelly."

"You ungracious, wicked boy! you call me cruel!"

"I don't call you cruel; but you wrong her cruelly, most cruelly.
When I have spoken to her about this--for I have spoken to her--she
has behaved exactly as you would have wanted her to do; but not at
all as I wished her. She has given me no encouragement. You have
turned her out among you"--Frank was beginning to be very bitter
now--"but she has done nothing to deserve it. If there has been any
fault it has been mine. But it is well that we should all understand
each other. My intention is to marry Mary if I can." And, so
speaking, certainly without due filial respect, he turned towards the
door.

"Frank," said his mother, raising herself up with energy to make one
last appeal. "Frank, do you wish to see me die of a broken heart?"

"You know, mother, I would wish to make you happy, if I could."

"If you wish to see me ever happy again, if you do not wish to see
me sink broken-hearted to my grave, you must give up this mad idea,
Frank,"--and now all Lady Arabella's energy came out. "Frank there is
but one course left open to you. You MUST _marry money_." And then
Lady Arabella stood up before her son as Lady Macbeth might have
stood, had Lady Macbeth lived to have a son of Frank's years.

"Miss Dunstable, I suppose," said Frank, scornfully. "No, mother; I
made an ass, and worse than an ass of myself once in that way, and I
won't do it again. I hate money."

"Oh, Frank!"

"I hate money."

"But, Frank, the estate?"

"I hate the estate--at least I shall hate it if I am expected to buy
it at such a price as that. The estate is my father's."

"Oh, no, Frank; it is not."

"It is in the sense I mean. He may do with it as he pleases; he will
never have a word of complaint from me. I am ready to go into a
profession to-morrow. I'll be a lawyer, or a doctor, or an engineer;
I don't care what." Frank, in his enthusiasm, probably overlooked
some of the preliminary difficulties. "Or I'll take a farm under him,
and earn my bread that way; but, mother, don't talk to me any more
about marrying money." And, so saying, Frank left the room.

Frank, it will be remembered, was twenty-one wh