pay nothing."

"Ah, but you had told him that you would. And then those cormorants
have been told so also. We had better build a bridge of gold for
a falling enemy. Stick to your former proposition, without any
reference to a legacy, and make him write the letter. My clerk shall
find him to-morrow."

Sir Harry at last gave way; the lucky Walker received back his full
money, Bullbean's wages of iniquity and all; and Sir Harry returned
to Humblethwaite.

Cousin George was sitting in Mrs. Morton's room with a very bad
headache five days after his arrival in London, and she was reading
over a manuscript which she had just written. "That will do, I
think," she said.

"Just the thing," said he, without raising his head.

"Will you copy it now, George?"

"Not just now, I am so seedy. I'll take it and do it at the club."

"No; I will not have that. The draft would certainly be left out on
the club table; and you would go to billiards, and the letter never
would be written."

"I'll come back and do it after dinner."

"I shall be at the theatre then, and I won't have you here in my
absence. Rouse yourself and do it now. Don't be such a poor thing."

"That's all very well, Lucy; but if you had a sick headache, you
wouldn't like to have to write a d----d letter like that."

Then she rose up to scold him, being determined that the letter
should be written then and there. "Why, what a coward you are; what a
feckless, useless creature! Do you think that I have never to go for
hours on the stage, with the gas in a blaze around me, and my head
ready to split? And what is this? A paper to write that will take you
ten minutes. The truth is, you don't like to give up the girl!" Could
she believe it of him after knowing him so well; could she think that
there was so much of good in him?

"You say that to annoy me. You know that I never cared for her."

"You would marry her now if they would let you."

"No, by George. I've had enough of that. You're wide awake enough to
understand, Lucy, that a fellow situated as I am, over head and ears
in debt, and heir to an old title, should struggle to keep the things
together. Families and names don't matter much, I suppose; but, after
all, one does care for them. But I've had enough of that. As for
Cousin Emily, you know, Lucy, I never loved any woman but you in my
life."

He was a brute, unredeemed by any one manly gift; idle,
self-indulgent, false, and without a principle. She w