younger son.
I know where a girl of your beauty may choose. Far better than you do I
know that you might have title, rank, fortune; and as for me, all I
have is a miserable annuity Lackington allows me, just enough to starve
on,--not that I mean to go on, however, as I have been doing; no, no, by
Jove! I 'm round the corner now, and I intend to make play, and 'take up
my running.' Your father and I understand what we're about."

What a look was that Lizzy gave him! What a piercing significance must
the glance have had that sent the blood so suddenly to his face and
forehead, and made him falter, and then stop.

"One thing I 'll swear to you, Lizzy,--swear it by all that is most
solemn," cried he, at last: "if you consent to share fortunes with me,
I 'll never engage in anything--no matter how sure or how safe--without
your full concurrence. I have been buying experience this many a
year, and pretty sharply has it cost me. They make a gentleman pay his
footing, I promise you; but I _do_ know a thing or two at last; I _have_
had my eyes opened!"

Oh, Annesley Beecher, can you not see how you are damaging your own
cause? You have but to look at that averted head, or, bending round, to
catch a glimpse of those fair features, and mark the haughty scorn upon
them, to feel that you are pleading against yourself.

"And what may be this knowledge of which you are so proud?" said she,
coldly.

"Oh, as to that," said he, in some confusion at the tone she had
assumed, "it concerns many a thing you never heard of. The turf, and the
men that live by it, make a little world of their own; they don't bother
their heads about parties or politics,--don't care a farthing who 's
'in' or who 's 'out.' They keep their wits--and pretty sharp wits they
are--for what goes on in Scott's stable, and how Holt stands for the St.
Leger. They 'd rather hear how Velocipede eat his corn, than hear all
the Cabinet secrets of Europe; and for that matter, so would I."

"I do not blame you for not caring for State secrets,--it is very
possible they would interest you little; but surely you might imagine
some more fitting career than what, after all, is a mere trading on the
weakness of others. To make of an amusement a matter of profit is, in my
eyes, mean; it is contemptible."

"That's not the way to look on it at all. The first men in England have
race-horses."

"And precisely in the fact of their great wealth do they soar above all
the ignoble