u."

"I d--don't know one."

"Two, I assure you--Miss Clifford and myself. Come, Mr. Fitzroy, I will
not beat about the bush. I am afraid you are mortified, and I must say,
justly mortified, at the coolness my father has shown to you. But I
assure you that it is not from any disrespect to you personally."

"Oh, indeed!" said Percy, ironically.

"No; quite the reverse--he is afraid of you."

"That is a g--g--good joke."

"No; let me explain. Fathers are curious people. If they are ever so
disinterested in their general conduct, they are sure to be a little
mercenary for their children. Now you know Miss Clifford is a beauty who
would adorn Clifford Hall, and an heiress whose money would purchase
certain properties that join ours. You understand?"

"Yes," said the little man, starting up in great wrath. "I understand,
and it's a--bom--inable. I th--thought you were my friend, and a m--man
of h--honor."

"So I am, and that is why I warn you in time. If you quarrel with Miss
Clifford, and leave this place in a pet, just see what risks we both run,
you and I. My father will be always at me, and I shall not be able to
insist on your prior claim; he will say you have abandoned it. Julia will
take the huff, and you know beautiful women will do strange things--mad
things--when once pique enters their hearts. She might turn round and
marry me."

"You forget, sir, you are a man of honor."

"But not a man of stone. Now, my dear Fitzroy, be reasonable. Suppose
that peerless creature went in for female revenge; why, the first thing
she would do would be to _make_ me love her, whether I chose or no. She
wouldn't give _me_ a voice in the matter. She would flatter me; she would
cajole me; she would transfix my too susceptible heart with glances of
fire and bewitching languor from those glorious eyes."

"D--d----! Ahem!" cried Percy, turning green.

Walter had no mercy. "I heard her say once she could make any man love
her if she chose."

"So she could," said Percy, ruefully. "She made me. I had an awful
p--p--prejudice against her, but there was no resisting."

"Then don't subject _me_ to such a trial. Stick to her like a man."

"So I will; b--but it is a m--m--mortifying position. I'm a man of
family. We came in with the C--Conquest, and are respected in our
c--county; and here I have to meet her on the sly, and live at the
D--Dun Cow."

"Where the _cuisine_ is wretched."

"A--b--b--bominable!"

Having thus impr