cousin is your wife, I think you were saying?"

"She will be, some months hence. We were engaged a week ago, with the
full knowledge and consent of Doctor and Mrs. Jessop, her nearest
friends."

"And of yours?" asked Mr. Brithwood, with as much sarcasm as his blunt
wits could furnish him.

"I have no relatives."

"So I always understood. And that being the case, may I ask the
meaning of the visit? Where are your lawyers, your marriage
settlements, hey? I say, young man--ha! ha! I should like to know
what you can possibly want with me, Miss March's trustee?"

"Nothing whatever. Miss March, as you are aware, is by her father's
will left perfectly free in her choice of marriage; and she has chosen.
But since, under certain circumstances, I wish to act with perfect
openness, I came to tell you, as her cousin and the executor of this
will, that she is about to become my wife."

And he lingered over that name, as if its very utterance strengthened
and calmed him.

"May I inquire into those 'certain circumstances'?" asked the other,
still derisively.

"You know them already. Miss March has a fortune and I have none; and
though I wish that difference were on the other side--though it might
and did hinder me from seeking her--yet now she is sought and won, it
shall not hinder my marrying her."

"Likely not," sneered Mr. Brithwood.

John's passion was rising again.

"I repeat, it shall not hinder me. The world may say what it chooses;
we follow a higher law than the world--she and I. She knows me, she is
not afraid to trust her whole life with me; am I to be afraid to trust
her? Am I to be such a coward as not to dare to marry the woman I
love, because the world might say I married her for her money?"

He stood, his clenched hand resting on the table, looking full into
Richard Brithwood's face. The 'squire sat dumfoundered at the young
man's vehemence.

"Your pardon," John added, more calmly. "Perhaps I owe her some pardon
too, for bringing her name thus into discussion; but I wished to have
everything clear between myself and you, her nearest relative. You now
know exactly how the matter stands. I will detain you no longer--I
have nothing more to say."

"But I have," roared out the 'squire, at length recovering himself,
seeing his opponent had quitted the field. "Stop a minute."

John paused at the door.

"Tell Ursula March she may marry you, or any other vagabond she
pleases--it's no busines