to be underhand in my dealings," Valentine said boldly.
And indeed this was the truth. His inclination prompted him to candour,
even with Mr. Sheldon; but that fatal necessity which is the governing
principle of the adventurer's life obliged him to employ the arts of
finesse.

"Good," cried Mr. Sheldon, in the cheery, pleasant tone of an
easy-going man of the world, who is not too worldly to perform a
generous action once in a way. "All I ask is frankness. You and
Charlotte have fallen in love with one another--why, I can't imagine,
except on the hypothesis that a decent-looking young woman and a
decent-looking young man can't meet half a dozen times without
beginning to think of Gretna-green, or St. George's, Hanover-square. Of
course a marriage with you, looked at from a common-sense point of
view, would be about the worst thing that could happen to my wife's
daughter. She's a very fine girl" (a man of the Sheldonian type would
call Aphrodite herself a fine girl), "and might marry some awfully rich
City swell with vineries and pineries and succession-houses at
Tulse-hill or Highgate, if I chose to put her in the way of that sort
of thing. But then, you see, the worst of it is, a man seldom comes to
vineries and pineries at Tulse-hill till he is on the shady side of
forty; and as I am not in favour of mercenary marriages, I don't care
to force any of my City connection upon poor Lotta. In the
neighbourhood of the Stock Exchange there is no sharper man of business
than your humble servant; but I don't care to bring business habits to
Bayswater. Long before Lotta left school, I had made up my mind never
to come between her and her own inclination in the matrimonial line;
therefore, if she truly and honestly loves you, and if you truly and
honestly love her, I am not the man to forbid the bans."

"My dear Mr. Sheldon, how shall I ever thank you for this!" cried
Valentine, surprised into a belief in the purity of the stockbroker's
intentions.

"Don't be in a hurry," replied that gentleman coolly; "you haven't
heard me out yet. Though I may consent to take the very opposite line
of conduct which I might be expected to take as a man of the world, I
am not going to allow you and Charlotte to make fools of yourselves.
There must be no love-in-a-cottage business, no marrying on nothing a
year, with the expectation that papa and mamma will make up the
difference between that and a comfortable income. In plain English, if
I