r mother. She knew well that her mother had done
all that was possible on her behalf. But for that small trader they
would not even have had a roof to shelter them. But still there was
the fact, and she understood it. She was as her bringing up had made
her, and it was too late now to effect a change. Ah yes;--it was
indeed too late. It was all very well that lawyers should look upon
her as an instrument, as a piece of goods that might now, from the
accident of her ascertained birth, be made of great service to the
Lovel family. Let her be the lord's wife, and everything would be
right for everybody. It had been very easy to say that! But she
had a heart of her own,--a heart to be touched, and won, and given
away,--and lost. The man who had been so good to them had sought
for his reward, and had got it, and could not now be defrauded. Had
she been dishonest she would not have dared to defraud him; had she
dared, she would not have been so dishonest.

"Did you like him?" asked the mother, not immediately after the
interview, but when the evening came.

"Oh yes,--how should one not like him?"

"How indeed! He is the finest, noblest youth that ever my eyes rested
on, and so like the Lovels."

"Was my father like that?"

"Yes indeed, in the shape of his face, and the tone of his voice, and
the movement of his eyes; though the sweetness of the countenance was
all gone in the Devil's training to which he had submitted himself.
And you too are like him, though darker, and with something of the
Murrays' greater breadth of face. But I can remember portraits at
Lovel Grange,--every one of them,--and all of them were alike. There
never was a Lovel but had that natural grace of appearance. You will
gaze at those portraits, dear, oftener even than I have done; and you
will be happy where I was,--oh--so miserable!"

"I shall never see them, mamma."

"Why not?"

"I do not want to see them."

"You say you like him?"

"Yes; I like him."

"And why should you not love him well enough to make him your
husband?"

"I am not fit to be his wife."

"You are fit;--none could be fitter; none others so fit. You are as
well born as he, and you have the wealth which he wants. You must
have it, if, as you tell me, he says that he will cease to claim it
as his own. There can be no question of fitness."

"Money will not make a girl fit, mamma."

"You have been brought up as a lady,--and are a lady. I swear I
do not know what you m