have seen piously praying for Consols, would have exchanged her poverty
and the dare-devil excitement and chances of her life for Osborne's
money and the humdrum gloom which enveloped him. He had proposed for
Miss Swartz, but had been rejected scornfully by the partisans of that
lady, who married her to a young sprig of Scotch nobility. He was a
man to have married a woman out of low life and bullied her dreadfully
afterwards; but no person presented herself suitable to his taste, and,
instead, he tyrannized over his unmarried daughter, at home. She had a
fine carriage and fine horses and sat at the head of a table loaded
with the grandest plate. She had a cheque-book, a prize footman to
follow her when she walked, unlimited credit, and bows and compliments
from all the tradesmen, and all the appurtenances of an heiress; but
she spent a woeful time. The little charity-girls at the Foundling, the
sweeperess at the crossing, the poorest under-kitchen-maid in the
servants' hall, was happy compared to that unfortunate and now
middle-aged young lady.

Frederick Bullock, Esq., of the house of Bullock, Hulker, and Bullock,
had married Maria Osborne, not without a great deal of difficulty and
grumbling on Mr. Bullock's part. George being dead and cut out of his
father's will, Frederick insisted that the half of the old gentleman's
property should be settled upon his Maria, and indeed, for a long time,
refused, "to come to the scratch" (it was Mr. Frederick's own
expression) on any other terms. Osborne said Fred had agreed to take
his daughter with twenty thousand, and he should bind himself to no
more. "Fred might take it, and welcome, or leave it, and go and be
hanged." Fred, whose hopes had been raised when George had been
disinherited, thought himself infamously swindled by the old merchant,
and for some time made as if he would break off the match altogether.
Osborne withdrew his account from Bullock and Hulker's, went on 'Change
with a horsewhip which he swore he would lay across the back of a
certain scoundrel that should be nameless, and demeaned himself in his
usual violent manner. Jane Osborne condoled with her sister Maria
during this family feud. "I always told you, Maria, that it was your
money he loved and not you," she said, soothingly.

"He selected me and my money at any rate; he didn't choose you and
yours," replied Maria, tossing up her head.

The rapture was, however, only temporary. Fred's fathe