s
wife's preposterous notion of promising his poor little Betty's hand to a
man she had hardly seen. To protect her from such a repugnant bargain he
should have remained on the spot. He felt it almost as a misfortune that
the child would inherit so much wealth. She would be a mark for all the
adventurers in the kingdom. Had she been only the heiress to his own
unassuming little place at Falls, how much better would have been her
chances of happiness!

His wife had divined truly when she insinuated that he himself had a
lover in view for this pet child. The son of a dear deceased friend of
his, who lived not two miles from where the Squire now was, a lad a
couple of years his daughter's senior, seemed in her father's opinion the
one person in the world likely to make her happy. But as to breathing
such a scheme to either of the young people with the indecent haste that
his wife had shown, he would not dream of it; years hence would be soon
enough for that. They had already seen each other, and the Squire
fancied that he noticed a tenderness on the youth's part which promised
well. He was strongly tempted to profit by his wife's example, and
forestall her match-making by throwing the two young people together
there at Falls. The girl, though marriageable in the views of those
days, was too young to be in love, but the lad was fifteen, and already
felt an interest in her.

Still better than keeping watch over her at King's Hintock, where she was
necessarily much under her mother's influence, would it be to get the
child to stay with him at Falls for a time, under his exclusive control.
But how accomplish this without using main force? The only possible
chance was that his wife might, for appearance' sake, as she had done
before, consent to Betty paying him a day's visit, when he might find
means of detaining her till Reynard, the suitor whom his wife favoured,
had gone abroad, which he was expected to do the following week. Squire
Dornell determined to return to King's-Hintock and attempt the
enterprise. If he were refused, it was almost in him to pick up Betty
bodily and carry her off.

The journey back, vague and Quixotic as were his intentions, was
performed with a far lighter heart than his setting forth. He would see
Betty, and talk to her, come what might of his plan.

So he rode along the dead level which stretches between the hills
skirting Falls-Park and those bounding the town of Ivell, trotted t