trol your emotions."

"Yes, indeed, Gertrude," said the mother. "As the things are at
present you should control yourself. Nobody as yet knows what may
come of it."

"Oh, Benjamin!" again exclaimed Gertrude, tearing herself from his
arms, throwing herself on the sofa, and covering her face with both
her hands. "Oh, Benjamin,--so you have come at last."

"I am afraid he has come too soon," said Augusta, who however had
received her lesson from her husband, and had communicated some
portion of her husband's tidings to her sister.

"Why too soon?" exclaimed Gertrude. "It can never be too soon. Oh,
mamma, tell him that you make him welcome to your bosom as your
second son-in-law."

"Upon my word, my dear, I do not know, without consulting your
father."

"But papa has consented," said Gertrude.

"But only if--"

"Oh, mamma," said Mrs. Traffick, "do not talk about matters of
business on such an occasion as this. All that must be managed
between the gentlemen. If he is here as Gertrude's acknowledged
lover, and if papa has told him that he shall be accepted as such, I
don't think that we ought to say a word about money. I do hate money.
It does make things so disagreeable."

"Nobody can be more noble in everything of that kind than Benjamin,"
said Gertrude. "It is only because he loves me with all his heart
that he is here. Why else was it that he took me off to Ostend?"

Captain Batsby as he listened to all this felt that he ought to say
something. And yet how dangerous might a word be! It was apparent to
him, even in his perturbation, that the ladies were in fact asking
him to renew his offer, and to declare that he renewed it altogether
independently of any money consideration. He could not bring himself
quite to agree with that noble sentiment in expressing which Mrs.
Traffick had declared her hatred of money. In becoming the son-in-law
of a millionaire he would receive the honest congratulations of all
his friends,--on condition that he received some comfortable fraction
out of the millions, but he knew well that he would subject himself
to their ridicule were he to take the girl and lose the plunder. If
he were to answer them now as they would have him answer he would
commit himself to the girl without any bargain as to the plunder.
And yet what else was there for him to do? He must be a brave man
who can stand up before a girl and declare that he will love her for
ever,--on condition that she shall have so