'll find he'll make a very good sort of gentleman. Sir William
Patterson says that he'll be in Parliament before long."

"Sir William! Sir William is always meddling. I have never thought
much about Sir William."

"Come, uncle Charles,--you should be fair. If we had gone on
quarrelling and going to law, where should I have been now? I should
never have got a shilling out of the property. Everybody says so. No
doubt Sir William acted very wisely."

"I am no lawyer. I can't say how it might have been. But I may have
my doubts if I like. I have always understood that Lady Lovel, as you
choose to call her, was never Lord Lovel's wife. For twenty years I
have been sure of it, and I can't change so quickly as some other
people."

"She is Lady Lovel now. The King and Queen would receive her as such
if she went to Court. Her daughter is Lady Anna Lovel."

"It may be so. It is possible."

"If it be not so," said the young lord thumping the table, "where
have I got the money from?" This was an argument that the rector
could not answer;--so he merely shook his head. "I am bound to
acknowledge them after taking her money."

"But not him. You haven't had any of his money. You needn't
acknowledge him."

"We had better make the best of it, uncle Charles. He is going to
marry our cousin, and we should stand by her. Sir William very
strongly advises me to be present at the marriage, and to offer to
give her away."

"The girl you were going to marry yourself!"

"Or else that you should do it. That of course would be better."

The rector of Yoxham groaned when the proposition was made to him.
What infinite vexation of spirit and degradation had come to him from
these spurious Lovels during the last twelve months! He had been made
to have the girl in his house and to give her precedence as Lady
Anna, though he did not believe in her; he had been constrained to
treat her as the desired bride of his august nephew the Earl,--till
she had refused the Earl's hand; after he had again repudiated her
and her mother because of her base attachment to a low-born artisan,
he had been made to re-accept her in spirit, because she had been
generous to his nephew;--and now he was asked to stand at the altar
and give her away to the tailor! And there could come to him neither
pleasure nor profit from the concern. All that he had endured he
had borne simply for the sake of his family and his nephew. "She is
degrading us all,--as far as she be