intended for his daughter,--which would have been
forthcoming at the moment and paid down on the nail, had she
married Arthur Fletcher. The very way in which the money should be
invested and tied up and made to be safe and comfortable to the
Fletcher-cum-Wharton interests generally, had been fully settled
among them. But now this other man, this stranger, this Portuguese,
had entered in upon the inheritance. But the stranger, the
Portuguese, must wait. Mr. Wharton knew himself to be an old man.
She was his child, and he would not wrong her. But she should have
her money closely settled upon herself on his death,--and on her
children, should she then have any. It should be done by his will. He
would say nothing about money to Lopez, and if Lopez should, as was
probable, ask after his daughter's fortune, he would answer to this
effect. Thus he almost resolved that he would give his daughter to
the man without any inquiry as to the man's means. The thing had to
be done, and he would take no further trouble about it. The comfort
of his life was gone. His home would no longer be a home to him. His
daughter could not now be his companion. The sooner that death came
to him the better, but till death should come he must console himself
as well as he could by playing whist at the Eldon. It was after this
fashion that Mr. Wharton thought of the coming marriage between his
daughter and her lover.

"I have your father's consent to marry your sister," said Ferdinand
immediately on entering Everett's room.

"I knew it must come soon," said the invalid.

"I cannot say that it has been given in the most gracious
manner,--but it has been given very clearly. I have his express
permission to see her. Those were his last words."

Then there was a sending of notes between the sick-room and the sick
man's sister's room. Everett wrote and Ferdinand wrote, and Emily
wrote,--short lines each of them,--a few words scrawled. The last
from Emily was as follows:--"Let him go into the drawing-room. E. W."
And so Ferdinand went down, to meet his love,--to encounter her for
the first time as her recognised future husband and engaged lover.
Passionate, declared, and thorough as was her love for this man, the
familiar intercourse between them had hitherto been very limited.
There had been little,--we may perhaps say none,--of that dalliance
between them which is so delightful to the man and so wondrous to the
girl till custom has staled the edge of