onal effects."

"Liberty be hanged!" responded John. "You are over fastidious; always
were. Your father was the same, I know; can see it in his likeness. I
should say, by the look of that, he was too much of a gentleman for a
soldier."

Lionel smiled. "Some of our soldiers are the most refined gentlemen in
the world."

"I can't tell how they retain their refinement, then, amid the rough and
ready of camp life. I know I lost all I had at the diggings."

Lionel laughed outright at the notion of John Massingbird's losing his
refinement at the diggings. He never had any to lose. John joined in the
laugh.

"Lionel, old boy, do you know I always liked you, with all your
refinement; and it's a quality that never found great favour with me. I
liked you better than I liked poor Fred; and that's the truth."

Lionel made no reply, and John Massingbird smoked for a few minutes in
silence. Presently he began again.

"I say, what made you go and marry Sibylla?"

Lionel lifted his eyes. But John Massingbird resumed, before he had time
to speak.

"She's not worth a button. Now you need not fly out, old chap. I am not
passing my opinion on your wife; wouldn't presume to do such a thing;
but on my cousin. Surely I may find fault with my cousin, if I like! Why
did you marry her?"

"Why does anybody else marry?" returned Lionel.

"But why did you marry _her_? A sickly, fractious thing! I saw enough of
her in the old days. There! be quiet! I have done. If it hadn't been for
her, I'd have asked you to come here to your old home; you and I should
jog along together first-rate. But Sibylla bars it. She may be a model
of a wife; I don't insinuate to the contrary, take you note, Mr. Verner;
but she's not exactly a model of temper, and Verner's Pride wouldn't be
big enough to hold her and me. Would you have taken up your abode with
me, had you been a free man?"

"I cannot tell," replied Lionel. "It is a question that cannot arise
now."

"No. Sibylla stops it. What are you going to do with yourself?"

"That I cannot tell. I should like an appointment abroad, if I could get
one. I did think of going to London, and looking about me a bit; but I
am not sure that I shall do so just yet."

"I say, Lionel," resumed John Massingbird, sinking his voice, but
speaking in a joking sort of way, "how do you mean to pay your debts? I
hear you have a few."

"I have a good many, one way or another."

"Wipe them off," said John.

"I wish I