And I say Yes--and that here is the money in my
pocket to do it now, if you like--not mine, sir, my honoured client's,
your aunt, Lady Bernstein. But she has a right to impose her conditions,
and I've brought 'em with me."

"Tell them, sir," says Mr. Harry.

"They are not hard. They are only for your own good: and if you say Yes,
we can call a hackney-coach, and go to Clarges Street together, which
I have promised to go there, whether you will or no. Mr. Warrington, I
name no names, but there was a question of marriage between you and a
certain party."

"Ah!" said Harry; and his countenance looked more cheerful than it had
yet done.

"To that marriage my noble client, the Baroness, is most averse--having
other views for you, and thinking it will be your ruin to marry a
party,--of noble birth and title it is true; but, excuse me, not of
first-rate character, and so much older than yourself. You had given an
imprudent promise to that party."

"Yes; and she has it still," says Mr. Warrington.

"It has been recovered. She dropped it by an accident at Tunbridge,"
says Mr. Draper, "so my client informed me; indeed her ladyship showed
it me, for the matter of that. It was wrote in bl----"

"Never mind, sir!" cries Harry, turning almost as red as the ink which
he had used to write his absurd promise, of which the madness and folly
had smote him with shame a thousand times over.

"At the same time letters, wrote to you, and compromising a noble
family, were recovered," continues the lawyer. "You had lost 'em. It was
no fault of yours. You were away when they were found again. You may
say that that noble family, that you yourself, have a friend such as few
young men have. Well, sir, there's no earthly promise to bind you--only
so many idle words said over a bottle, which very likely any gentleman
may forget. Say you won't go on with this marriage--give me and my noble
friend your word of honour. Cry off, I say, Mr. W.! Don't be such a
d----fool, saving your presence, as to marry an old woman who has jilted
scores of men in her time. Say the word, and I step downstairs, pay
every shilling against you in the office, and put you down in my coach,
either at your aunt's or at White's Club, if you like, with a couple of
hundred in your pocket. Say yes; and give us your hand! There's no use
in sitting grinning behind these bars all day!"

So far Mr. Draper had had the best of the talk. Harry only longed
himself to be rid of t