t d'ye mean?"

"I mean that you are to think no more of Mercy Vint."

"Then it is true, ye jade; ye've gotten a fresh lover already."

"Say no more than you know. If you were the only man on earth, I would
not wed you, Paul Carrick."

Paul Carrick retired home, and blew up his sister, and told her that she
had "gotten him the sack again."

The next day Sir George came back from Lancaster, and Mercy lowered her
lashes for once at sight of him.

"Well," said he, "has this Carrick shown a sense of your goodness?"

"He has come,--and gone."

She then, with her usual frankness, told him what had passed. "And,"
said she, with a smile, "you are partly to blame; for how could I help
comparing your behavior to me with his? _You_ came to my side when I was
in trouble, and showed me respect when I expected scorn from all the
world. A friend in need is a friend indeed."

"Reward me, reward me," said Sir George, gayly; "you know the way."

"Nay, but I am too much _your_ friend," said Mercy.

"Be less my friend then, and more my darling."

He pressed her, he urged her, he stuck to her, he pestered her.

She snubbed, and evaded, and parried, and liked him all the better for
his pestering her.

At last, one day, she said: "If Mrs. Gaunt thinks it will be for your
happiness, I _will_--in six months' time; but you shall not marry in
haste to repent at leisure. And I must have time to learn two
things,--whether you can be constant to a simple woman like me, and
whether I can love again, as tenderly as you deserve to be loved."

All his endeavors to shake this determination were vain. Mercy Vint had
a terrible deal of quiet resolution.

He retired to Cumberland, and, in a long letter, asked Mrs. Gaunt's
advice.

She replied characteristically. She began very soberly to say that she
should be the last to advise a marriage between persons of different
conditions in life. "But then," said she, "this Mercy is altogether an
exception. If a flower grows on a dunghill, 't is still a flower, and
not a part of the dunghill. She has the essence of gentility, and indeed
her _manners_ are better bred than most of our ladies. There is too much
affectation abroad, and that is your true vulgarity. Tack 'my lady' on
to 'Mercy Vint,' and that dignified and quiet simplicity of hers will
carry her with credit through every court in Europe. Then think of her
virtues,"--(here the writer began to lose her temper,)--"where can you
hope to fi