u might as well tell
me everything." Then after considerable pressure the sculptor did
tell him everything. There was an income of less than three hundred
a year,--which would probably become about four within the next
twelvemonth. There were no funds prepared with which to buy the
necessary furniture for the incoming of a wife, and there was that
debt demanded by his father.

"Must that be paid?" asked the Colonel.

"I would starve rather than not pay it," said Hamel, "if I alone were
to be considered. It would certainly be paid within the next six
months if I were alone, even though I should starve."

Then his friend told him that the debt should be paid at once. It
amounted to but little more than a hundred pounds. And then, of
course, the conversation was carried further. When a friend inquires
as to the pecuniary distresses of a friend he feels himself as a
matter of course bound to relieve him. He would supply also the means
necessary for the incoming of the young wife. With much energy, and
for a long time, Hamel refused to accept the assistance offered
to him; but the Colonel insisted in the first place on what he
considered to be due from himself to Ayala's sister, and then on
the fact that he doubted not in the least the ultimate success
which would attend the professional industry of his friend. And so
before the day was over it was settled among them. The money was
to be forthcoming at once, so that the debt might be paid and the
preparations made, and Hamel was to write to Lucy and declare that he
should be ready to receive her as soon as arrangements should be made
for their immediate marriage. Then came the further outrage,--that
cruel speech as to intruders, and Lucy wrote to her lover, owning
that it would be well for her that she should be relieved.

The news was, of course, declared to the family at Merle Park. "I
never knew anything so hard," said Aunt Emmeline. "Of course you have
told him that it was all my fault." When Lucy made no answer to this,
she went on with her complaint. "I know that you have told him that I
have turned you out,--which is not true."

"I told him it was better I should go, as you did not like my being
here."

"I suppose Lucy was in a little hurry to have the marriage come off,"
said Augusta,--who would surely have spared her cousin if at the
moment she had remembered the haste which had been displayed by her
sister.

"I thought it best," said Lucy.

"I'm sure I