dirty, ignorant, and modest; and so finding
her had made himself responsible for feeding, cleaning, and teaching
her,--and ultimately for marrying her. One would have said that in
undertaking a task of such undoubted charity as that comprised in the
three first charges, he would have encountered no difficulty from
the drunken, dissolute, impoverished engraver. But the man from the
beginning was cunning; and before Graham had succeeded in obtaining
the custody of the child, the father had obtained a written
undertaking from him that he would marry her at a certain age if
her conduct up to that age had been becoming. As to this latter
stipulation no doubt had arisen; and indeed Graham had so acted by
her that had she fallen away the fault would have been all her own.
There wanted now but one year to the coming of that day on which he
was bound to make himself a happy man, and hitherto he himself had
never doubted as to the accomplishment of his undertaking.

He had told his friends,--those with whom he was really intimate,
Augustus Staveley and one or two others,--what was to be his
matrimonial lot in life; and they had ridiculed him for his quixotic
chivalry. Staveley especially had been strong in his conviction that
no such marriage would ever take place, and had already gone so far
as to plan another match for his friend.

"You know you do not love her," he had said, since Felix had been
staying on this occasion at Noningsby.

"I know no such thing," Felix had answered, almost in anger. "On the
contrary I know that I do love her."

"Yes, as I love my niece Marian, or old Aunt Bessy, who always
supplied me with sugar-candy when I was a boy."

"It is I that have supplied Mary with her sugar-candy, and the love
thus engendered is the stronger."

"Nevertheless you are not in love with her, and never will be, and if
you marry her you will commit a great sin."

"How moral you have grown!"

"No, I'm not. I'm not a bit moral. But I know very well when a man
is in love with a girl, and I know very well that you're not in love
with Mary Snow. And I tell you what, my friend, if you do marry her
you are done for life. There will absolutely be an end of you."

"You mean to say that your royal highness will drop me."

"I mean to say nothing about myself. My dropping you or not dropping
you won't alter your lot in life. I know very well what a poor man
wants to give him a start; and a fellow like you who has such quaint