ter far
off--'engagement to dear--dear Devil, does she say?'

'The only fit match,' muttered Mervyn, laughing. 'No, no, sir!
Bevil--Sir Bevil Acton.'

'What! not the fellow that gave us so much trouble! He had not a
sixpence; but she must please herself now.'

'You don't mean that you didn't know what she went with the Merivales
for?--five thousand a year and a baronetcy, eh?'

'The deuce! If I had known that, he might have had her long ago.'

'It's quite recent,' said Mervyn. 'A mere chance; and he has been
knocking about in the colonies these ten years--might have cut his wisdom
teeth.'

'Ten years--not half-a-dozen!' said Mr. Fulmort.

'Ten!' reiterated Mervyn. 'It was just before I went to old Raymond's.
Acton took me to dine at the mess. He was a nice fellow then, and
deserved better luck.'

'Ten years' constancy!' said Phoebe, who had been looking from one to the
other in wonder, trying to collect intelligence. 'Do tell me.'

'Whew!' whistled Mervyn. 'Juliana hadn't her sharp nose nor her sharp
tongue when first she came out. Acton was quartered at Elverslope, and
got smitten. She flirted with him all the winter; but I fancy she didn't
give you much trouble when he came to the point, eh, sir?'

'I thought him an impudent young dog for thinking of a girl of her
prospects; but if he had this to look to!--I was sorry for him, too! Ten
years ago,' mused Mr. Fulmort.

'And she has liked no one since?'

'Or no one has liked her, which comes to the same,' said Mervyn. 'The
regiment went to the Cape, and there was an end of it, till we fell in
with the Merivales on board the steamer; and they mentioned their
neighbour, Sir Bevil Acton, come into his property, and been settled near
them a year or two. Fine sport it was, to see Juliana angling for an
invitation, brushing up her friendship with Minnie Merivale--amiable to
the last degree! My stars! what work she must have had to play good
temper all these six weeks, and how we shall have to pay for it!'

'Or Acton will,' said Mr. Fulmort, with a hearty chuckle of triumphant
good-humour.

Was it a misfortune to Phoebe to have been so much refined by education
as to be grated on by the vulgar tone of those nearest to her? It was
well for her that she could still put it aside as their way, even while
following her own instinct. Mervyn and Juliana had been on cat and dog
terms all their lives; he was certain to sneer at all that concerned her,
a