ing on
'Change, shrewd fellow, and therefore, of course I don't stint him: ha!
he's a regular Witney comforter, that boy--makes money--ay, for all his
seeming extravagance, the clever little rogue knows how to keep it, too.
If you only knew, ma'am, if you only knew--but we don't blab to fools."

I dare say "fools" will hear the wise man's secret some day.

"Well, Thomas, I am sure I have no wish to pry into business
transactions; all my present hope is to help the cause of our poor dear
Maria."

"Don't call the girl 'poor,' Lady Dillaway; it's no recommendation, I
can tell you, though it may be true enough. Girls are a bad spec, unless
they marry money. If our girl does this, well; she will indeed be to me
a dear Maria, though not a poo-o-o-r one; if she doesn't, let her bide,
and be an old maid; for as to marrying this fellow Clement's, I'll cut
him adrift to-morrow."

"If you do, Sir Thomas, you will break our dear child's heart."

"Heart, ma'am! what business has my daughter with a heart?" [what,
indeed?] "I hate hearts; they were sent, I believe, purposely to make
those who are plagued with 'em poo-o-o-r. Heart, indeed! When did heart
ever gain money? ey? what? It'll give, O yes, plenty--plenty, to
charities, and churches, and orphans, and beggars, and any thing else,
by way of getting rid of gold; but as to gaining--bah! heart
indeed--pauperizing bit of muscle! save me from wearing under my
waistcoat what you're pleased to call a heart. No, mum, no; if the girl
has got a heart to break, I've done with her. Heart indeed! she either
marries money and my blessing, or marries beggary and my curse. But I
should like to know who wants her to marry at all? Let her die an old
maid."

Probably this dialogue need go no farther: in the coming chapter we will
try to be didactic. Meantime, to apostrophize ten words upon that last
heartless sentence:

"Let her die an old maid." An old maid! how many unrecorded sorrows, how
much of cruel disappointment and heart-cankering delay, how often-times
unwritten tragedies are hidden in that thoughtless little phrase! O, the
mass of blighted hopes, of slighted affections, of cold neglect, and
foolish contumely, wrapped up in those three syllables! Kind heart, kind
heart, never use them; neither lightly as in scorn, nor sadly as in
pity: spare that ungenerous reproach. What! canst thou think that from a
feminine breast the lover, the wife, the mother, can be utterly sponged
away w