Augustus looked at her, but she turned away her face, and he could only
mark that her cheeks and throat were covered with a deep blush.

"This part of Julia's letter is very curious," said she, turning to
the last page. "They were stopping at a little inn, one night, where
Pracontal and Longworth arrived, and George, by a mere accident, heard
Pracontal declare that he would have given anything to have known you
personally; that he desired, above everything, to be received by you on
terms of friendship, and even of kindred; that the whole of this unhappy
business could have been settled amicably, and, in fact, he never ceased
to blame himself for the line into which his lawyer's advice had led
him, while all his wishes tended to an opposite direction."

"But Sedley says he has accepted the arrangement, and abandoned all
claim in future."

"So he has, and it is for that he blames himself. He says it debars him
from the noble part he desired to take."

"I was no part to this compromise, Nelly; remember that. I yielded to
reiterated entreaty a most unwilling assent, declaring, always, that
the law must decide the case between us, and the rightful owner have his
own. Let not Mr. Pracontal imagine that all the high-principled action
is on his side; from the very first, I declared that I would not enjoy
for an hour what I did not regard undisputably as my own. You can bear
witness to this, Nelly. I simply assented to the arrangement, as they
called it, to avoid unnecessary scandal. What the law shall decide
between us, need call forth no evil passions or ill-will. If the fortune
we had believed our own belongs to another, let him have it."

The tone of high excitement in which he spoke plainly revealed how far a
nervous temperament and a susceptible nature had to do with his present
resolve. Nelly had seen this before, but never so fully revealed as now.
She knew well the springs which could move him to acts of self-sacrifice
and devotion, but she had not thoroughly realized to herself that it
was in a paroxysm of honorable emotion he had determined to accept the
reverse of fortune, which would leave him penniless in the world.

"No, Nelly!" said he, as he arose and walked the room, with head erect,
and a firm step. "We shall not suffer these people who talk slightingly
of the newly risen gentry to have their scoff unchallenged! It is the
cant of the day to talk of mercantile honor and City notions of what is
high-mind