ing, fretful wife. If
I can ever assist you to be happy, and prosperous, and elate before
the world, I will try my best to do so; but I will not come to you
like a clog round your neck, to impede all your efforts in your
first struggle at rising. If I can wait, George, surely you can? An
unfulfilled engagement can be no impediment to a man, whatever it may
be to a girl."

It may have been perceived by this time that Miss Waddington was not
a person easy to be talked over. On this occasion, Bertram failed
altogether in moving her. Even though at one moment aunt Mary had
almost yielded to him, Caroline remained steady as a rock. None of
his eloquence--and he was very eloquent on the occasion--changed
her at all. She became soft in her tone, and affectionate, almost
caressing in her manner; but nothing would induce her to go from her
point. Bertram got on a very high horse, and spoke of the engagement
as being thus practically broken off. She did not become angry, or
declare that she took him at his word; but with a low voice she said
that she was aware that her determination gave him an option in the
matter. He would certainly be justified in so resolving; nay, might
do so without the slightest stain upon his faith. She herself would
not violate the truth by saying that such a decision would give her
pleasure; that it would--would-- Here for the first time she became
rather agitated, and before she could finish, George was at her feet,
swearing that he could not, would not live without her; that she knew
that he could not, and would not do so.

And so the little conference ended. George had certainly gained
nothing. Caroline had gained this, that she had made known her
resolution, and had, nevertheless, not lost her lover. To all the
expressions of her determination not to marry till George should be
a barrister, aunt Mary had added a little clause--that such decision
might at any moment be changed by some new act of liberality on the
part of uncle Bertram. In aunt Mary's mind, the rich uncle, the rich
grandfather, was still the god that was to come down upon the stage
and relieve them from their great difficulty.

As George returned to town with his friend, his love was not quite so
triumphant as it had been that morning on his road to church.

END OF VOL. I.

* * * * *

THE BERTRAMS.

A Novel.

by

ANTHONY TROLLOPE

Author of "Barchester Towers," "Doctor Thorne," etc.