ivalent to:--I could almost
do that.'

At the same time she felt it was not Seymour Austin's manner of speaking.
He seemed to be praising an unknown person--some gentleman who was rough,
but of solid promise and singular strength of character.

The house-bell rang. Believing that Beauchamp had now come, she showed a
painful ridging of the brows, and Mr. Austin considerately mentioned the
name of the person he had in his mind.

She readily agreed with him regarding Mr. Tuckham's excellent
qualities--if that was indeed the name; and she hastened to recollect how
little she had forgotten Mr. Tuckham's generosity to Beauchamp, and
confessed to herself it might as well have been forgotten utterly for the
thanks he had received. While revolving these ideas she was listening to
Mr. Austin; gradually she was beginning to understand that she was
parting company with her original conjectures, but going at so swift a
pace in so supple and sure a grasp, that, like the speeding train slipped
on new lines of rails by the pointsman, her hurrying sensibility was not
shocked, or the shock was imperceptible, when she heard him proposing Mr.
Tuckham to her for a husband, by her father's authority, and with his own
warm seconding. He had not dropped her hand: he was very eloquent, a
masterly advocate: he pleaded her father's cause; it was not put to her
as Mr. Tuckham's: her father had set his heart on this union he was
awaiting her decision.

'Is it so urgent?' she asked.

'It is urgent. It saves him from an annoyance. He requires a son-in-law
whom he can confidently rely on to manage the estates, which you are
woman of the world enough to know should be in strong hands. He gives you
to a man of settled principles. It is urgent, because he may wish to be
armed with your answer at any instant.'

Her father entered the library. He embraced her, and 'Well?' he said.

'I must think, papa, I must think.'

She pressed her hand across her eyes. Disillusioned by Seymour Austin,
she was utterly defenceless before Beauchamp: and possibly Beauchamp was
in the house. She fancied he was, by the impatient brevity of her
father's voice.

Seymour Austin and Colonel Halkett left the room, and Blackburn Tuckham
walked in, not the most entirely self-possessed of suitors, puffing
softly under his breath, and blinking eyes as rapidly as a skylark claps
wings on the ascent.

Half an hour later Beauchamp appeared. He asked to see the colonel,
deliv