promote the marriage. We are all most anxious to bring to a close
this ruinous litigation. Now, I am told that the young lady feels
herself hampered by some childish promise that has been made--to
you."

Daniel Thwaite had expected no such announcement as this. He did not
conceive that the girl would tell the story of her engagement, and
was unprepared at the moment for any reply. But he was not a man to
remain unready long. "Do you call it childish?" he said.

"I do certainly."

"Then what would her engagement be if now made with the Earl? The
engagement with me, as an engagement, is not yet twelve months old,
and has been repeated within the last month. She is an infant, Mr.
Flick, according to your language, and therefore, perhaps, a child in
the eye of the law. If Lord Lovel wishes to marry her, why doesn't he
do so? He is not hindered, I suppose, by her being a child."

"Any marriage with you, you know, would in fact be impossible."

"A marriage with me, Mr. Flick, would be quite as possible as one
with the Lord Lovel. When the lady is of age, no clergyman in England
dare refuse to marry us, if the rules prescribed by law have been
obeyed."

"Well, well, Mr. Thwaite; I do not want to argue with you about the
law and about possibilities. The marriage would not be fitting, and
you know that it would not be fitting."

"It would be most unfitting,--unless the lady wished it as well as I.
Just as much may be said of her marriage with Earl Lovel. To which of
us has she given her promise? which of us has she known and loved?
which of us has won her by long friendship and steady regard? and
which of us, Mr. Flick, is attracted to the marriage by the lately
assured wealth of the young woman? I never understood that Lord Lovel
was my rival when Lady Anna was regarded as the base-born child of
the deceased madman."

"I suppose, Mr. Thwaite, you are not indifferent to her money?"

"Then you suppose wrongly,--as lawyers mostly do when they take upon
themselves to attribute motives."

"You are not civil, Mr. Thwaite."

"You did not send for me here, sir, in order that there should be
civilities between us. But I will at least be true. In regard to Lady
Anna's money, should it become mine by reason of her marriage with
me, I will guard it for her sake, and for that of the children she
may bear, with all my power. I will assert her right to it as a
man should do. But my purpose in seeking her hand will neither be