ears which her enthusiasm called into them, while she thus
addressed him. Mowbray, on his part, kept his looks fixed on the ground,
with a flush on his cheek, that expressed at once false pride and real
shame.

At length he looked up:--"My dear girl," he said, "how foolishly you
talk, and how foolishly I, that have twenty things to do, stand here
listening to you! All will go smooth on _my_ plan--if it should not, we
have yours in reserve, and I swear to you I will adopt it. The trifle
which this letter of yours enables me to command, may have luck in it,
and we must not throw up the cards while we have a chance of the
game.--Were I to cut from this moment, these few hundreds would make us
little better or little worse--so you see we have two strings to our
bow. Luck is sometimes against me, that is true--but upon true
principle, and playing on the square, I can manage the best of them, or
my name is not Mowbray. Adieu, my dearest Clara." So saying, he kissed
her cheek with a more than usual degree of affection.

Ere he could raise himself from his stooping posture, she threw her arm
kindly over his neck, and said with a tone of the deepest interest, "My
dearest brother, your slightest wish has been, and ever shall be, a law
to me--Oh! if you would but grant me one request in return!"

"What is it, you silly girl?" said Mowbray, gently disengaging himself
from her hold.--"What is it you can have to ask that needs such a solemn
preface?--Remember, I hate prefaces; and when I happen to open a book,
always skip them."

"Without preface, then, my dearest brother, will you, for my sake, avoid
those quarrels in which the people yonder are eternally engaged? I never
go down there but I hear of some new brawl; and I never lay my head down
to sleep, but I dream that you are the victim of it. Even last
night"----

"Nay, Clara, if you begin to tell your dreams, we shall never have done.
Sleeping, to be sure, is the most serious employment of your life--for
as to eating, you hardly match a sparrow; but I entreat you to sleep
without dreaming, or to keep your visions to yourself.--Why do you keep
such fast hold of me?--What on earth can you be afraid of?--Surely you
do not think the blockhead Binks, or any other of the good folks below
yonder, dared to turn on me? Egad, I wish they would pluck up a little
mettle, that I might have an excuse for drilling them. Gad, I would soon
teach them to follow at heel."

"No, John," repli