indly to him, had bidden him go to a very warm place for
money, as he had no orders to give him any.

'Your uncle,' he said, 'settled one hundred thousand dollars on your
father--the more fool he--and expects him to live on it. So my advice to
you is that you go to work.'

Now, Tom couldn't work, and after a little Peterkin's gift did not seem
so very humiliating to him, although he could not bring himself to tell
his mother of it when he announced his engagement to her, which he did
bluntly and with nothing apologetic in his manner or speech.

'I am going to marry Ann Eliza Peterkin some time during the holidays,
and start at once for Europe,' he said, and then brought some water and
dashed it in her face, for she immediately went into hysterics and
declared herself dying.

When she grew calm, Tom swore a little, and talked a good deal, and told
her about the million, which he said was not to be sneezed at, and told
her what Colvin had said to him, and asked what the old Harry he was to
do if he didn't marry Ann Eliza, and told her of the proposed party,
asking her to save him from it if she could.

When she found she could not help herself, Dolly rose to the situation,
and said she would see her daughter-in-law elect, whom Tom was to bring
to her, as she could not think of calling at Le Bateau in her present
state of affliction. So Ann Eliza came over in the coat-of-arms
carriage, and her mother came with her. But her Dolly declined to see.
She could not endure everything, she said to Tom, and was only equal to
Ann Eliza, whom she met with a bow and the tips of her fingers, without
rising from her chair. Still, as the representative of a million, Ann
Eliza was entitled to some consideration, and Dolly motioned her to a
seat beside her, and, with her black-bordered handkerchief to her eyes,
said to her:

'Tom tells me you are going to marry him, and I trust you will try to
make him happy. He is a most estimable young man now, and if he should
develop any bad habits, I shall think it owing to some new and bad
influence brought to bear upon him.'

'Yes'm,' Ann Eliza answered, timidly; and the great lady went on to talk
of family, and blood, and position, as something for which money could
not make amends, and to impress upon her a sense of the great honor it
was to be a member of the Tracy family.

Then she spoke of the wedding party, which she trusted Ann Eliza would
prevent, as nothing could be in worse taste