l write home to th' old farmer--a penny," said Anthony, showing that
he had considered the outlay and was prepared for it.

"And uncle," she stipulated in turn, "they are not to see me yet. Very
soon; but not yet. Be true to me, and come alone, or it will be your
fault--I shall not appear. Now, mind. And beg them not to leave the farm.
It will kill father. Can you not," she said, in the faded sweetness of
her speech, "could you not buy it, and let father be your tenant, uncle?
He would pay you regularly."

Anthony turned a rough shoulder on her.

"Good-bye, Dahly. You be a good girl, and all 'll go right. Old farmer
talks about praying. If he didn't make it look so dark to a chap, I'd be
ready to fancy something in that. You try it. You try, Dahly. Say a bit
of a prayer to-night."

"I pray every night," Dahlia answered.

Her look of meek despair was hauntingly sad with Anthony on his way home.

He tracked her sorrowfulness to the want of money; and another of his
terrific vague struggles with the money-demon set in.

CHAPTER XXVI

Sir William Blancove did business at his Bank till the hour of three in
the afternoon, when his carriage conveyed him to a mews near the park of
Fashion, where he mounted horse and obeyed the bidding of his doctor for
a space, by cantering in a pleasant, portly, cock-horsey style, up and
down the Row.

It was the day of the great race on Epsom Downs, and elderly gentlemen
pricked by the doctors were in the ascendant in all London congregations
on horseback.

Like Achilles (if the bilious Shade will permit the impudent comparison),
they dragged their enemy, Gout, at their horses' heels for a term, and
vengeance being accomplished went to their dinners and revived him.

Sir William was disturbed by his son's absence from England. A youth to
whom a baronetcy and wealth are to be bequeathed is an important
organism; and Sir William, though his faith reposed in his son, was
averse to his inexplicably prolonged residence in the French metropolis,
which, a school for many things, is not a school for the study of our
Parliamentary system, and still less for that connubial career Sir
William wished him to commence.

Edward's delightful cynical wit--the worldly man's profundity--and his
apt quotations of the wit of others, would have continued to exercise
their charm, if Sir William had not wanted to have him on the spot that
he might answer certain questions pertinaciously put by Ma