nds, and I don't
know where to turn for it, so that my husband may not be dunned for my
debts as soon as he has married me. What a wife I should have been for
you--should I not?"

"I could pay the six hundred pounds for you with money that I have
earned myself--though you do call me an usher--and perhaps would ask
fewer questions about it than Lord Ongar will do with all his
thousands."

"Dear Harry, I beg your pardon about the usher. Of course, I know that
you are a fellow of your college, and that St. Cuthbert's, where you
teach the boys, is one of the grandest schools in England; and I hope
you'll be a bishop; nay--I think you will, if you make up your mind to
try for it."

"I have given up all idea of going into the church."

"Then you'll be a judge. I know you'll be great and distinguished, and
that you'll do it all yourself. You are distinguished already. If you
could only know how infinitely I should prefer your lot to mine! Oh,
Harry, I envy you! I do envy you! You have got the ball at your feet,
and the world before you, and can win everything for yourself."

"But nothing is anything without your love."

"Pshaw! Love, indeed. What could it do for you but ruin you? You know it
as well as I do; but you are selfish enough to wish to continue a
romance which would be absolutely destructive to me, though for a while
it might afford a pleasant relaxation to your graver studies. Harry, you
can choose in the world. You have divinity, and law, and literature, and
art. And if debarred from love now by the exigencies of labor, you will
be as fit for love in ten years' time as you are at present."

"But I do love now."

"Be a man, then, and keep it to yourself. Love is not to be our master.
You can choose, as I say; but I have had no choice--no choice but to be
married well, or to go out like a snuff of a candle. I don't like the
snuff of a candle, and, therefore, I am going to be married well."

"And that suffices?"

"It must suffice. And why should it not suffice? You are very uncivil,
cousin, and very unlike the rest of the world. Everybody compliments me
on my marriage. Lord Ongar is not only rich, but he is a man of fashion,
and a man of talent."

"Are you fond of race-horses yourself?"

"Very fond of them."

"And of that kind of life?"

"Very fond of it. I mean to be fond of everything that Lord Ongar likes.
I know that I can't change him, and, therefore, I shall not try."

"You are right there, M