d."

"Well, yes; if you choose to call it so. My instructions are to
foreclose at once."

"Then I must say the duke is treating me most uncommonly ill."

"Well, Sowerby, I can't see it."

"I can, though. He has his money like clock-work; and he has bought
up these debts from persons who would have never disturbed me as long
as they got their interest."

"Haven't you had the seat?"

"The seat! and is it expected that I am to pay for that?"

"I don't see that any one is asking you to pay for it. You are like
a great many other people that I know. You want to eat your cake and
have it. You have been eating it for the last twenty years, and now
you think yourself very ill-used because the duke wants to have his
turn."

"I shall think myself very ill-used if he sells me out--worse than
ill-used. I do not want to use strong language, but it will be more
than ill-usage. I can hardly believe that he really means to treat me
in that way."

"It is very hard that he should want his own money!"

"It is not his money that he wants. It is my property."

"And has he not paid for it? Have you not had the price of your
property? Now, Sowerby, it is of no use for you to be angry; you have
known for the last three years what was coming on you as well as I
did. Why should the duke lend you money without an object? Of course
he has his own views. But I do say this; he has not hurried you; and
had you been able to do anything to save the place you might have
done it. You have had time enough to look about you." Sowerby still
stood in the place in which he had first fixed himself, and now for
awhile he remained silent. His face was very stern, and there was
in his countenance none of those winning looks which often told so
powerfully with his young friends,--which had caught Lord Lufton and
had charmed Mark Robarts. The world was going against him, and things
around him were coming to an end. He was beginning to perceive that
he had in truth eaten his cake, and that there was now little left
for him to do,--unless he chose to blow out his brains. He had said
to Lord Lufton that a man's back should be broad enough for any
burden with which he himself might load it. Could he now boast that
his back was broad enough and strong enough for this burden? But he
had even then, at that bitter moment, a strong remembrance that it
behoved him still to be a man. His final ruin was coming on him, and
he would soon be swept away out of the k