what's the use? You are only trying to read me a moral
lecture, because I gave Lucy a harmless smack."

"Lucy Ransom!" repeated Mrs. Kinloch, with ineffable scorn. "Lucy
Ransom! I hope my son isn't low enough to dally with a housemaid, a
scullion! If I _had_ seen such a spectacle, I should have kept my
mouth shut for shame. 'A guilty conscience needs no accuser'; but I am
sorry you had not pride enough to keep your disgusting fooleries to
yourself."

"Regularly sold!" muttered Hugh, as he beat a rat-tattoo on the
window-pane.

"I gave you credit for more penetration, Hugh. Now, just look a
minute. What would you think of the shrewdness of a young man, who
had no special turn for business, but a great fondness for taking his
ease,--with no money nor prospect of any,--and who, when he had the
opportunity to step at once into fortune and position, made no
movement to secure it?"

"Well, the application?"

"The fortune may be yours, if you will."

"Don't tell me riddles. Show me the prize, and I'm after it."

"But it has an incumbrance."

"Well?"

"A pretty, artless, affectionate little woman, who will make you the
best wife in the world."

"Splendid, by Jove! Who is she?"

"You needn't look far. We generally miss seeing the thing that is
under our nose."

"Why, mother, there isn't an heiress in Innisfield except my sister
Mildred."

"Mildred is not your sister. You are no more to each other than the
two farthest persons on earth."

"True enough! Well, mother, you _are_ an old 'un!"

"Don't!"--with a look of disgust,--"don't use your sailor slang here!
To see that doesn't require any particular shrewdness."

"But Mildred never liked me much. She always ran from me, like the
kitten from old Bose. She has always looked as though she thought I
would bite, and that it was best she should keep out of reach under a
chair."

"Any young man of good address and fair intelligence can make an
impression on a girl of eighteen, if he has the will, the time, and
the opportunity. You have everything in your favor, and if you don't
take the fortune that lies right in your path, you deserve to go to
the poor-house."

Hugh meditated.

"Good-morning," said Mrs. Kinloch. "You know the horse and carriage,
or the saddle-ponies, are always yours when you want to use them."

Great discoveries seem always so simple, that we wonder they were not
made from the first. The highest truths are linked with the commonest
obje