rantic energy.

"But you see if I wouldn't! You see if I don't! I suppose they think
a lord isn't to be cowhided in this country. I guess I'll let 'em
know the difference."

"But I don't love him," said the tablet.

"Goodness gracious me!"

"I don't. When he spoke of you in that way I began to think of it,
and I found I hated him. I do hate him like poison, and I want you to
tell him so."

"That will be very disagreeable," said the father.

"Never mind the disagreeables. You tell him so. I tell you he won't
be the worst pleased of the lot of us. He wanted a singer, and not a
Landleaguer's daughter; now he hasn't got the singer, but has got the
Landleaguer's daughter. And I'll tell you something else I want--"

"What do you want?" asked the father, when her hand for a moment
ceased to scrawl.

"I want," she said, "Frank Jones. Now you know all about it."

Then she hid her face beneath the bedclothes, and refused to write
another word.

He went on talking to her till he had forgotten the Speaker and
the rod in pickle. He besought her to think better of it; and if
not that, just at present to postpone any action in the matter. He
explained to her how very disagreeable it would be to him to have to
go to the lord with such a message as she now proposed. But she only
enhanced the vehemence of her order by shaking her head as her face
lay buried in the pillow.

"Let it wait for one fortnight," said the father.

"No!" said the girl, using her own voice for the effort.

Then the father slowly took himself off, and making his way to the
House of Commons, renewed his passion as he went, and had himself
again turned out before he had been half-an-hour in the House.

The earl was sitting alone after breakfast two or three days
subsequently, thinking in truth of his difficulty with Rachel. It
had come to be manifest to him that he must marry the girl unless
something terrible should occur to her. "She might die," he said to
himself very sadly, trying to think of cases in which singers had
died from neglected throats. And it did make him very sad. He could
not think of the perishing of that magnificent treble without great
grief; and, after his fashion, he did love her personally. He did
not know that he could ever love anyone very much better. He had
certainly thought that it would be a good thing that his father and
mother and sister should go and live in foreign lands,--in order, in
short, that they might never