nt--he could be patient. He did not want superfluity
of wealth; his habits were simple, as she well knew; and money enough
would be theirs in time, both from her share of contingencies, and the
certainty of his finally possessing Bromley.

Ellinor delayed replying to this letter until her father should have
spoken to her on the subject. But as she perceived that he avoided all
such conversation, the young girl's heart failed her. She began to blame
herself for wishing to leave him, to reproach herself for being accessory
to any step which made him shun being alone with her, and look distressed
and full of care as he did now. It was the usual struggle between father
and lover for the possession of love, instead of the natural and graceful
resignation of the parent to the prescribed course of things; and, as
usual, it was the poor girl who bore the suffering for no fault of her
own: although she blamed herself for being the cause of the disturbance
in the previous order of affairs. Ellinor had no one to speak to
confidentially but her father and her lover, and when they were at issue
she could talk openly to neither, so she brooded over Mr. Corbet's
unanswered letter, and her father's silence, and became pale and
dispirited. Once or twice she looked up suddenly, and caught her
father's eye gazing upon her with a certain wistful anxiety; but the
instant she saw this he pulled himself up, as it were, and would begin
talking gaily about the small topics of the day.

At length Mr. Corbet grew impatient at not hearing either from Mr.
Wilkins or Ellinor, and wrote urgently to the former, making known to him
a new proposal suggested to him by his father, which was, that a certain
sum should be paid down by Mr. Wilkins to be applied, under the
management of trustees, to the improvement of the Bromley estate, out of
the profits of which, or other sources in the elder Mr. Corbet's hands, a
heavy rate of interest should be paid on this advance, which would secure
an income to the young couple immediately, and considerably increase the
value of the estate upon which Ellinor's settlement was to be made. The
terms offered for this laying down of ready money were so advantageous,
that Mr. Wilkins was strongly tempted to accede to them at once; as
Ellinor's pale cheek and want of appetite had only that very morning
smote upon his conscience, and this immediate transfer of ready money was
as a sacrifice, a soothing balm to his self