a cent of your own."

"Then, sir, I wash my hands of the whole affair. If the young lady
should die, my conscience will be clear. It shall never be said Thomas
Thurston was so lost to himself as to bargain for a wife."

"We must, then, part, and the negotiation must fall through."

Tom rose with dignity, and got as far as the door. With his hand on the
latch, he added--

"Rather than blight the prospects of so pure and lovely a creature I
will make every sacrifice short of honor--let it be $30,000, Mr.
Monson?"

"As you please, sir--so that it be covered by $30,000 of your own."

"My nature revolts at the proposition, and so--good morning, sir."

Tom left the house, and Mr. Monson laughed heartily; so heartily,
indeed, as to prove how much he relished the success of his scheme.

"Talk of Scylla and Charybdis!" soliloquized the discomfited Tom, as he
wiped the perspiration from his face--"Where the d--l does he think I
am to find the $50,000 he wants, unless he first gives them to me? I
never heard of so unreasonable an old chap! Here is a young fellow that
offers to marry his daughter for $30,000--half price, as one may
say--and he talks about covering every cent he lays down with one of my
own. I never knew what was meant by cent. per cent. before. Let me see;
I've just thirty-two dollars and sixty-nine cents, and had we played at
a game of coppers, I couldn't have held out half an hour. But, I
flatter myself, I touched the old scamp up with morals, in a way he
wasn't used to. Well, as this thing is over, I will try old Sweet, the
grocer's daughter. If the wardrobe and whiskers fail there, I must rub
up the Greek and Latin, and shift the ground to Boston. They say a chap
with a little of the classics can get $30 or 40,000, there, any day in
the week. I wish my parents had brought me up a schoolmaster; I would
be off in the first boat. Blast it!--I thought when I came down to
$30,000, he would have snapped at the bait, like a pike. He'll never
have a chance to get her off so cheap, again."

{cent. per cent. = one hundred percent}

This ended the passage of flirtation between Thomas Thurston and Julia
Monson. As for the latter, she took such a distaste for me, that she
presented me to Mademoiselle Hennequin, at the first opportunity, under
the pretence that she had discovered a strong wish in the latter to
possess me.

Adrienne accepted the present with some reluctance, on account of the
price that had been