d you to--allow me to love you. I now ask you
again."

"Allow you!" she said.

"Yes;--allow me. I should be too bold were I to ask you to return my
love at once. I only ask you to know that because I was repulsed once, I
have not given up the pursuit."

"Mr. Neville, I am sure that my father and mother would not permit it."

"May I ask your father, Miss Mellerby?"

"Certainly not,--with my permission."

"Nevertheless you will not forget that I am suitor for your love?"

"I will make no promise of anything, Mr. Neville." Then, fearing that
she had encouraged him, she spoke again. "I think you ought to take my
answer as final."

"Miss Mellerby, I shall take no answer as final that is not favourable.
Should I indeed hear that you were to be married to another man, that
would be final; but that I shall not hear from your own lips. You will
say good-bye to me," and he offered her his hand.

She gave him her hand;--and he raised it to his lips and kissed it, as
men were wont to do in the olden days.

CHAPTER XII.

FRED NEVILLE MAKES A PROMISE.

Fred Neville felt that he had not received from his brother the
assistance or sympathy which he had required. He had intended to make
a very generous offer,--not indeed quite understanding how his offer
could be carried out, but still of a nature that should, he thought,
have bound his brother to his service. But Jack had simply answered him
by sermons;--by sermons and an assurance of the impracticability of
his scheme. Nevertheless he was by no means sure that his scheme was
impracticable. He was at least sure of this,--that no human power could
force him to adopt a mode of life that was distasteful to him. No one
could make him marry Sophie Mellerby, or any other Sophie, and maintain
a grand and gloomy house in Dorsetshire, spending his income, not in a
manner congenial to him, but in keeping a large retinue of servants
and taking what he called the "heavy line" of an English nobleman.
The property must be his own,--or at any rate the life use of it. He
swore to himself over and over again that nothing should induce him to
impoverish the family or to leave the general affairs of the house of
Scroope worse than he found them. Much less than half of that which he
understood to be the income coming from the estates would suffice for
him. But let his uncle or aunt,--or his strait-laced methodical brother,
say what they would to him, nothing should induce him to mak