y did at a less rate
than that. If she sticks to him nobody can beat him out of it. What
I mean is, that it was all fair game. He ran his chance, and did it
in a manly fashion." The Earl did not quite understand Sir William,
who seemed to take almost a favourable view of these monstrous
betrothals. "What I mean is, that nobody can touch him, or find fault
with him. He has not carried her away, and got up a marriage before
she was of age. He hasn't kept her from going out among her friends.
He hasn't--wronged her, I suppose?"

"I think he has wronged her frightfully."

"Ah,--well. We mean different things. I am obliged to look at it as
the world will look at it."

"Think of the disgrace of such a marriage;--to a tailor."

"Whose father had advanced her mother some five or six thousand
pounds to help her to win back her position. That's about the truth
of it. We must look at it all round, you know."

"You think, then, that nothing should be done?"

"I think that everything should be done that can be done. We have
the mother on our side. Very probably we may have old Thwaite on
our side. From what you say, it is quite possible that at this very
moment the girl herself may be on our side. Let her remain at Yoxham
as long as you can get her to stay, and let everything be done to
flatter and amuse her. Go down again yourself, and play the lover as
well as I do not doubt you know how to do it." It was clear then that
the great legal pundit did not think that an Earl should be ashamed
to carry on his suit to a lady who had confessed her attachment to
a journeyman tailor. "It will be a trouble to us all, of course,
because we must change our plan when the case comes on in November."

"But you still think that she is the heiress?"

"So strongly, that I feel all but sure of it. We shouldn't, in truth,
have had a leg to stand on, and we couldn't fight it. I may as well
tell you at once, my lord, that we couldn't do it with any chance
of success. And what should we have gained had we done so? Nothing!
Unless we could prove that the real wife were dead, we should have
been fighting for that Italian woman, whom I most thoroughly believe
to be an impostor."

"Then there is nothing to be done?"

"Very little in that way. But if the young lady be determined to
marry the tailor, I think we should simply give notice that we
withdraw our opposition to the English ladies, and state that we had
so informed the woman who asserts h