d to demand.

"My dearest Juliana, what is the meaning of all this?" he at length
articulated.

"Oh, you cunning thing! So you think I don't know that your father has
given you a great, great quantity of money, and that we may go away
whenever we please, and do just as we like, and live in London,
and--and--oh, delightful!" And she bounded and skipped before the eyes
of the petrified spinsters.

"In the name of heaven, what does all this mean?" asked Henry,
addressing his aunts, who, for the first time in their lives, were
struck dumb by astonishment. But Miss Jacky, at length recollecting
herself, turned to Lady Juliana, who was still testifying her delight by
a variety of childish but graceful movements, and thus addressed her:

"Permit me to put a few questions to your Ladyship, in presence of those
who were witnesses of what has already passed."

"Oh, I can't endure to be asked questions; besides, I have no time to
answer them."

"Your Ladyship must excuse me; But I can't permit you to leave this
room under the influence of an error. Have the goodness to answer me the
following questions, and you will then be at liberty to depart. Did I
inform your Ladyship that my brother had given my nephew a great
quantity of money?"

"Oh yes! a great, great deal; I don't know how much, though--"

"Did I?" returned her interrogator.

"Come, come, have done with all this confounded nonsense!" exclaimed
Henry passionately. "Do you imagine I will allow Lady Juliana to stand
here all day, to answer all the absurd questions that come into the
heads of three old women? You stupefy and bewilder her with your eternal
tattling and roundabout harangues." And he paced the room in a paroxysm
of rage, while his wife suspended her dancing, and stood in breathless
amazement.

"I declare--I'm sure--it's a thousand pities that there should have been
any mistake made," whined poor Miss Grizzy.

"The only remedy is to explain the matter quickly," observed Miss Nicky;
"better late than never."

"I have done," said Miss Jacky, seating herself with much dignity.

"The short and the long of it is this," said Miss Nicky, "My brother has
not made Henry a present of money. I assure you money is not so rife;
but he has done what is much better for you both,--he has made over to
him that fine thriving farm of poor Macglashan's."

"No money!" repeated Lady Juliana in a disconsolate tone: then quickly
brightening up, "It would have been bett