at days we had!'

Old Tom tugged once or twice at his imprisoned fist, while these
youthful frolics of his too stupid self and the wild and beautiful Miss
Bonner were being recalled.

'I remember!' he said savagely, and reaching the door hurled out: 'And I
remember the Bull-dogs, too! servant, my lady.' With which he effected a
retreat, to avoid a ringing laugh he heard in his ears.

Lady Jocelyn had not laughed. She had done no more than look and smile
kindly on the old boy. It was at the Bull-dogs, a fall of water on the
borders of the park, that Tom Cogglesby, then a hearty young man, had
been guilty of his folly: had mistaken her frank friendliness for a
return of his passion, and his stubborn vanity still attributed her
rejection of his suit to the fact of his descent from a cobbler, or, as
he put it, to her infernal worship of rank.

'Poor old Tom!' said her ladyship, when alone. 'He 's rough at the rind,
but sound at the core.' She had no idea of the long revenge Old Tom
cherished, and had just shaped into a plot to be equal with her for the
Bull-dogs.

CHAPTER XXIX. PRELUDE TO AN ENGAGEMENT

Money was a strong point with the Elburne brood. The Jocelyns
very properly respected blood; but being, as Harry, their youngest
representative, termed them, poor as rats, they were justified in
considering it a marketable stuff; and when they married they married
for money. The Hon. Miss Jocelyn had espoused a manufacturer, who failed
in his contract, and deserved his death. The diplomatist, Melville, had
not stepped aside from the family traditions in his alliance with Miss
Black, the daughter of a bold bankrupt, educated in affluence; and if
he touched nothing but L5000 and some very pretty ringlets, that was
not his fault. Sir Franks, too, mixed his pure stream with gold. As yet,
however, the gold had done little more than shine on him; and, belonging
to expectancy, it might be thought unsubstantial. Beckley Court was in
the hands of Mrs. Bonner, who, with the highest sense of duty toward
her only living child, was the last to appreciate Lady Jocelyn's
entire absence of demonstrative affection, and severely reprobated her
daughter's philosophic handling of certain serious subjects. Sir Franks,
no doubt, came better off than the others; her ladyship brought him
twenty thousand pounds, and Harry had ten in the past tense, and
Rose ten in the future; but living, as he had done, a score of years
anticipating the