her
enchanting voice. He promised to help me, as far as he had the power,
in resisting the hateful Aresfield engagement, and he obtained the
assistance of an old friend in making himself acquainted with the terms
of his guardianship, and likewise of a letter my father had left for
him. He has given me leave to show a part of it to you, sir," he added,
"you will see that my father expressed a strong opinion that you were
wronged in the matter of the estates, and declared that he had hoped to
make some compensation by a contract between one of your daughters and
my brother who died. He charged my uncle if possible to endeavour to
bring about such a match between one of your children and myself. Thus,
you see, I was acting in the strictest obedience. You shall see the
letter at once, if I may bid my fellow Gray bring my pocket-book from my
valise."

"I doubt not of your words, my young friend; your father was a gentleman
of a high and scrupulous honour. But why all this hide-and-seek work?--I
hate holes and corners!"

"You will see how we were driven, sir. My mother came in her turn to
see my uncle, and obtain his sanction to her cherished plan, and when he
absolutely refused, on account of Lady Aresfield's notorious character,
if for no other, she made him understand that nothing would be easier
than to get him declared a lunatic and thus to dispense with his
consent. Then, finding how the sweet society of your dear daughter had
restored him to new life and spirit, she devised the notable expedient
of removing what she suspected to be the chief cause of my contumacy,
by marrying the poor child to him. He scouted the idea as a preposterous
and cruel sacrifice, but it presently appeared that Colonel Mar
was ready to find her a debauched old lieutenant who would gladly
marry--what do I say?--it profanes the word--but accept the young lady
for a couple of hundred pounds. Then did I implore my uncle to seem to
yield, and permit me to personate him at the ceremony. Our names being
the same, and all being done in private and in the dark, the whole
was quite possible, and it seemed the only means of saving her from a
terrible fate."

"He might--or you might, have remembered that she had a father!" said
the Major.

"True. But you were at a distance, and my mother's displeasure against
you was to be deprecated."

"I had rather she had been offended fifty times than have had such
practices with my poor little girl!" said Maj