aid, 'I have station, rank, power, and money
enough for two. It 's not to win the good favor of a wrinkled old
Archduchess or a deaf old Princess, I 'm going to marry. I 'll go in for
the whole field. I 'll take the girl that, if I was n't an Emperor, I 'd
be proud to call my own.' And signs on 't, they all cried out, 'See if
he has n't his heart in the right place; there's an honest drop there!
Let him be as ambitious as you like, he married just as you or I would.'
Ain't it a fine thing," exclaimed Grog, enthusiastically, "when one
has all the middle classes in one's favor,--the respectable ruck that's
always running, but seldom showing a winner? Get these fellows with you,
and it's like Baring's name on the back of your bill. And now, Beecher,"
said Davis, grasping the other's hand, and speaking with a deep
earnestness,--"and now that I 've said what you might have done, I 'll
tell you what I _will do_. I have just been sketching out this line of
country to see how you 'd take your fences, nothing more. You 've shown
me that you 're the right sort, and I 'm not the man to forget it. If
I had seen the shadow of a shade of a dodge about you,--if I 'd have
detected one line in your face, or one shake in your voice, like
treachery,--so help me! I 'd have thrown you over like winking! You
fancied yourself a great man, and was stanch and true to your old
friends; and now it's my turn to tell you that I would n't give that
empty flask yonder for all your brother Lackington's lease of his
peerage! Hear me out I have it from his own lawyers,--from the fellows
in Furnival's Inn,--it's up with him; the others are perfectly sure of
their verdict There's how it is! And now, Annesley Beecher, you were
willing to marry Kit Davis's daughter when you thought you could make
her a peeress; now I say, that when you 've nothing, nor haven't a
sixpence to bless yourself with, it's Kit himself will give her to
you, and say, there's not the other man breathing he'd as soon see the
husband of this same Lizzy Davis!"

The burst of emotion with which Beecher met this speech was, indeed, the
result of very conflicting feelings. Shock at the terrible tidings of
his brother's downfall, and the insult to his house and name, mingled
with a burst of gratitude to Davis for his fidelity; but stronger and
deeper than these was another sentiment,--for, smile if you will, most
sceptical reader, the man was in love, after _his_ fashion. I do not ask
of yo