see him every
day, I suppose?"

"Nearly every day."

"Why do you send for me, then?"

"It is so hard to tell you, Lucy. I have sent to you in good faith,
and in love. I could have gone to you,--only for the old vulture, who
would not have let us had a word in peace. I do see him--constantly.
And I love him dearly."

"That is nothing to me," said Lucy. Anybody hearing them, and not
knowing them, would have said that Lucy's manner was harsh in the
extreme.

"He has told me everything." Lizzie, when she said this, paused,
looking at her victim. "He has told me things which he could
not mention to you. It was only yesterday,--the day before
yesterday,--that he was speaking to me of his debts. I offered to
place all that I have at his disposal, so as to free him, but he
would not take my money."

"Of course he would not."

"Not my money alone. Then he told me that he was engaged to you. He
had never told me before, but yet I knew it. It all came out then.
Lucy, though he is engaged to you, it is me that he loves."

"I don't believe it," said Lucy.

"You can't make me angry, Lucy, because my heart bleeds for you."

"Nonsense! trash! I don't want your heart to bleed. I don't believe
you've got a heart. You've got money; I know that."

"And he has got none. If I did not love him, why should I wish to
give him all that I have? Is not that disinterested?"

"No. You are always thinking of yourself. You couldn't be
disinterested."

"And of whom are you thinking? Are you doing the best for him,--a man
in his position, without money, ambitious, sure to succeed if want
of money does not stop him,--in wishing him to marry a girl with
nothing? Cannot I do more for him than you can?"

"I could work for him on my knees, I love him so truly!"

"Would that do him any service? He cannot marry you. Does he ever see
you? Does he write to you as though you were to be his wife? Do you
not know that it is all over?--that it must be over? It is impossible
that he should marry you. But if you will give him back his word, he
shall be my husband, and shall have all that I possess. Now, let us
see who loves him best!"

"I do!" said Lucy.

"How will you show it?"

"There is no need that I should show it. He knows it. The only one
in the world to whom I wish it to be known, knows it already well
enough. Did you send for me for this?"

"Yes;--for this."

"It is for him to tell me the tidings;--not for you. You are nothing
to