nion."

"No, run me through the body if I am!" Rawdon ejaculated.

"You old booby," Rebecca said, pinching his ear and looking over to see
that he made no mistakes in spelling--"beseech is not spelt with an a,
and earliest is." So he altered these words, bowing to the superior
knowledge of his little Missis.

"I thought that you were aware of the progress of my attachment,"
Rebecca continued: "I knew that Mrs. Bute Crawley confirmed and
encouraged it. But I make no reproaches. I married a poor woman, and
am content to abide by what I have done. Leave your property, dear
Aunt, as you will. I shall never complain of the way in which you
dispose of it. I would have you believe that I love you for yourself,
and not for money's sake. I want to be reconciled to you ere I leave
England. Let me, let me see you before I go. A few weeks or months
hence it may be too late, and I cannot bear the notion of quitting the
country without a kind word of farewell from you."

"She won't recognise my style in that," said Becky. "I made the
sentences short and brisk on purpose." And this authentic missive was
despatched under cover to Miss Briggs.

Old Miss Crawley laughed when Briggs, with great mystery, handed her
over this candid and simple statement. "We may read it now Mrs. Bute
is away," she said. "Read it to me, Briggs."

When Briggs had read the epistle out, her patroness laughed more.
"Don't you see, you goose," she said to Briggs, who professed to be
much touched by the honest affection which pervaded the composition,
"don't you see that Rawdon never wrote a word of it. He never wrote to
me without asking for money in his life, and all his letters are full
of bad spelling, and dashes, and bad grammar. It is that little
serpent of a governess who rules him." They are all alike, Miss Crawley
thought in her heart. They all want me dead, and are hankering for my
money.

"I don't mind seeing Rawdon," she added, after a pause, and in a tone
of perfect indifference. "I had just as soon shake hands with him as
not. Provided there is no scene, why shouldn't we meet? I don't mind.
But human patience has its limits; and mind, my dear, I respectfully
decline to receive Mrs. Rawdon--I can't support that quite"--and Miss
Briggs was fain to be content with this half-message of conciliation;
and thought that the best method of bringing the old lady and her
nephew together, was to warn Rawdon to be in waiting on the Clif