y fellow--he would first cut my throat for having
won a thousand pounds from me, and then for offering to make his sister
a countess!"

"A countess, my lord?" said Mowbray; "you are but jesting--you have
never even seen Clara Mowbray."

"Perhaps not--but what then?--I may have seen her picture, as Puff says
in the Critic, or fallen in love with her from rumour--or, to save
farther suppositions, as I see they render you impatient, I may be
satisfied with knowing that she is a beautiful and accomplished young
lady, with a large fortune."

"What fortune do you mean, my lord?" said Mowbray, recollecting with
alarm some claims, which, according to Meiklewham's view of the
subject, his sister might form upon his property.--"What estate?--there
is nothing belongs to our family, save these lands of St. Ronan's, or
what is left of them; and of these I am, my lord, an undoubted heir of
entail in possession."

"Be it so," said the Earl, "for I have no claim on your mountain realms
here, which are, doubtless,

----'renown'd of old
For knights, and squires, and barons bold;'

my views respect a much richer, though less romantic domain--a large
manor, hight Nettlewood. House old, but standing in the midst of such
glorious oaks--three thousand acres of land, arable, pasture, and
woodland, exclusive of the two closes, occupied by Widow Hodge and
Goodman Trampclod--manorial rights--mines and minerals--and the devil
knows how many good things besides, all lying in the vale of Bever."

"And what has my sister to do with all this?" asked Mowbray, in great
surprise.

"Nothing; but that it belongs to her when she becomes Countess of
Etherington."

"It is, then, your lordship's property already?"

"No, by Jove! nor can it, unless your sister honours me with her
approbation of my suit," replied the Earl.

"This is a sorer puzzle than one of Lady Penelope's charades, my lord,"
said Mr. Mowbray; "I must call in the assistance of the Reverend Mr.
Chatterly."

"You shall not need," said Lord Etherington; "I will give you the key,
but listen to me with patience.--You know that we nobles of England,
less jealous of our sixteen quarters than those on the continent, do
not take scorn to line our decayed ermines with the little cloth of gold
from the city; and my grandfather was lucky enough to get a wealthy
wife, with a halting pedigree,--rather a singular circumstance,
considering that her father was a countryman of yours. Sh