. Ask your cousin, Lord Lovel, and he will tell you that it
is so."

"I care nothing for my cousin. If he be false, I am true. Though all
the world be false, still will I be true. I do not ask her to marry
her cousin. I simply demand that she shall relinquish one who is
infinitely beneath her,--who is unfit to tie her very shoe-string."

"He is my equal in all things," said Lady Anna, "and he shall be my
lord and husband."

"I know of no inequalities such as those you speak of, Lady Lovel,"
said the tailor. "The excellence of your daughter's merits I admit,
and am almost disposed to claim some goodness for myself, finding
that one so good can love me. But, Lady Lovel, I do not wish to
remain here now. You are disturbed."

"I am disturbed, and you had better go."

"I will go at once if you will let me name some early day on which I
may be allowed to meet Lady Anna,--alone. And I tell her here that if
she be not permitted so to see me, it will be her duty to leave her
mother's house, and come to me. There is my address, dear." Then he
handed to her a paper on which he had written the name of the street
and number at which he was now living. "You are free to come and go
as you list, and if you will send to me there, I will find you here
or elsewhere as you may command me. It is but a short five minutes'
walk beyond the house at which you were staying in Bedford Square."

The Countess stood silent for a moment or two, looking at them,
during which neither the girl spoke nor her lover. "You will not
even allow her six months to think of it?" said the Countess.
"I will allow her six years if she says that she requires time to
think of it."

"I do not want an hour,--not a minute," said Lady Anna.

The mother flashed round upon her daughter. "Poor vain, degraded
wretch," she said.

"She is a true woman, honest to the heart's core," said the lover.

"You shall come to-morrow," said the Countess. "Do you hear me,
Anna?--he shall come to-morrow. There shall be an end of this in some
way, and I am broken-hearted. My life is over for me, and I may as
well lay me down and die. I hope God in his mercy may never send upon
another woman,--upon another wife, or another mother,--trouble such
as that with which I have been afflicted. But I tell you this, Anna;
that what evil a husband can do,--even let him be evil-minded as was
your father,--is nothing,--nothing,--nothing to the cruelty of a
cruel child. Go now, Mr. Thwaite; i