Ef that man's all-fired belief in his being the Angel Gabriel and Dan'l
Webster rolled inter one don't beat anythin'! I suppose that high-flyin'
jay-bird kalkilated to put you and me and my gal and yer boy inter
harness for his four hoss chariot and he sittin' kam on the box drivin'
us! Why don't he tend to his own business, and look arter his own
concerns--instead o' leaving Jinny Bradley and Loo Macy dependent
on Kings and Queens and titled folks gen'rally, and he, Jim Bradley,
philanderin' with another man's wife--while that thar man is hard at
work tryin' to make a honest livin' fer his wife, buckin' agin faro an'
the tiger gen'rally at Monaco! Eh? And that man a-inter-meddlin' with
me! Ef," continued the voice, dropped to a tone of hopeless moral
conviction, "ef there's a man I mor'aly despise--it's that finikin' Jim
Bradley."

"You quite misunderstand me, my dear sir," said Sir Robert's hurried
voice; "he told me you had pledged him to secrecy, and he only revealed
it to explain why you wished to see me."

There was a grunt of half-placated wrath from Sharpe, and then the voice
resumed, but more deliberately, "Well, to come back to business: you've
got a boy, Francis, and I've got a darter, Araminty. They've sorter
taken a shine to each other and they want to get married. Mind yer--wait
a moment!--it wasn't allus so. No, sir; when my gal Araminty first seed
your boy in Californy she was poor, and she didn't kalkilate to get
inter anybody's family unbeknownst or on sufferance. Then she got rich
and you got poor; and then--hold on a minit!--she allows, does my girl,
that there ain't any nearer chance o' their making a match than they
were afore, for she isn't goin' to hev it said that she married your son
fur the chance of some day becomin' Lady Mainwaring."

"One moment, Mr. Sharpe," said the voice of the Baronet, gravely: "I am
both flattered and pained by what I believe to be the kindly object of
your visit. Indeed, I may say I have gathered a suspicion of what might
be the sequel of this most unhappy acquaintance of my son and your
daughter; but I cannot believe that he has kept you in ignorance of his
unfortunate prospects and his still more unfortunate state of health."

"When I told ye to hold on a minit," continued the blacksmith's voice,
with a touch of querulousness in its accent, "that was jist wot I was
comin' to. I knowed part of it from my own pocket, she knowed the rest
of it from his lip and the