ou." Here he was interrupted by a serious little bow of assent
from Phoebe, which disconcerted and angered him strangely. "This being
the case," he resumed more hotly, "don't you think we'd better come to
terms, you and me? You are too sensible a girl, I'll be bound, to marry
a man without a penny, which is what he would be. He would be properly
made an end of, Miss Phoebe, if he found out, after all his bravado last
night, that you were the one to cast him off after all."

"He cannot find that out," said Phoebe with a smile; "unfortunately even
if I could have done it under brighter circumstances my mouth is closed
now. I desert him now, when he is in trouble! Of course you do not know
me, so you are excused for thinking so, Mr. Copperhead."

The rich man stared. She was speaking a language which he did not
understand. "Look here, Miss Phoebe," he said, "let's understand each
other. High horses don't answer with me. As for deserting him when he's
in trouble, if you'll give him up--or desert him, as you call it--he
need never be in trouble at all. You can stop all that. Just you say no
to him, and he'll soon be on his knees to me to think no more of it. You
know who I am," Mr. Copperhead continued with a concealed threat. "I
have a deal of influence in the connection, though I say it that
shouldn't, and I'm very well looked on in chapel business. What would
the Crescent do without me? And if there should be an unpleasantness
between the minister and the leading member, why, you know, Miss Phoebe,
no one better, who it is that would go to the wall."

She made no answer, and he thought she was impressed by his arguments.
He went on still more strongly than before. "Such a clever girl as you
knows all that," said Mr. Copperhead, "and suppose you were to marry
Clarence without a penny, what would become of you? What would you make
of him? He is too lazy for hard work, and he has not brains enough for
anything else. What would you make of him if you had him? That's what I
want to know."

"And that is just what I can't tell you," said Phoebe smiling. "It is a
very serious question. I suppose something will turn up."

"What can turn up? You marry him because he is going into parliament,
and could give you a fine position."

"I confess," said Phoebe with her usual frankness, "that I did think of
his career; without that the future is much darker, and rather
depressing."

"Yes, you see that! A poor clod of a fellow that c