e altar of Hymen with Sam Wynne."

"To what will she come? Why are not the laws more stringent, that I
might compel her to hear reason?"

"Console yourself, uncle. Were Britain a serfdom and you the Czar, you
could not _compel_ me to this step. _I_ will write to Mr. Wynne. Give
yourself no further trouble on the subject."

* * * * *

Fortune is proverbially called changeful, yet her caprice often takes
the form of repeating again and again a similar stroke of luck in the
same quarter. It appeared that Miss Keeldar--or her fortune--had by this
time made a sensation in the district, and produced an impression in
quarters by her unthought of. No less than three offers followed Mr.
Wynne's, all more or less eligible. All were in succession pressed on
her by her uncle, and all in succession she refused. Yet amongst them
was more than one gentleman of unexceptionable character as well as
ample wealth. Many besides her uncle asked what she meant, and whom she
expected to entrap, that she was so insolently fastidious.

At last the gossips thought they had found the key to her conduct, and
her uncle was sure of it; and what is more, the discovery showed his
niece to him in quite a new light, and he changed his whole deportment
to her accordingly.

Fieldhead had of late been fast growing too hot to hold them both. The
suave aunt could not reconcile them; the daughters froze at the view of
their quarrels. Gertrude and Isabella whispered by the hour together in
their dressing-room, and became chilled with decorous dread if they
chanced to be left alone with their audacious cousin. But, as I have
said, a change supervened. Mr. Sympson was appeased and his family
tranquillized.

The village of Nunnely has been alluded to--its old church, its forest,
its monastic ruins. It had also its hall, called the priory--an older, a
larger, a more lordly abode than any Briarfield or Whinbury owned; and
what is more, it had its man of title--its baronet, which neither
Briarfield nor Whinbury could boast. This possession--its proudest and
most prized--had for years been nominal only. The present baronet, a
young man hitherto resident in a distant province, was unknown on his
Yorkshire estate.

During Miss Keeldar's stay at the fashionable watering-place of
Cliffbridge, she and her friends had met with and been introduced to Sir
Philip Nunnely. They encountered him again and again on the sands, the
cliffs, i