llow his douceur at an easy
gulp, so as hardly to betray an effort, and who will refuse even to
open his lips. And then the latter man has the briber so much at
advantage. When the luscious morsel has been refused, it is so easy
to be indignant, so pleasant to be enthusiastically virtuous! The
bribe had been refused, and so far the Serjeant had failed;--but the
desired promise had been made, and the Serjeant felt certain that it
would be kept. He did not doubt but that Daniel Thwaite would himself
offer the girl her freedom. But there was something in the man,
though he was a tailor. He had an eye and a voice, and it might be
that freedom offered, as he could offer it, would not be accepted.

Daniel, as he went out into the court from the lawyer's presence, was
less satisfied than the lawyer. He had told the lawyer that his word
was worth nothing, and yet he had believed much that the lawyer had
said to him. The lawyer had told him that the girl loved her cousin,
and only wanted his permission to be free that she might give her
hand and her heart together to the young lord. Was it not natural
that she should wish to do so? Within each hour, almost within
each minute, he regarded the matter in lights that were perfectly
antagonistic to each other. It was natural that she should wish to be
a Countess, and that she should love a young lord who was gentle and
beautiful;--and she should have his permission accorded freely. But
then, again, it was most unnatural, bestial, and almost monstrous,
that a girl should change her love for a man, going from one man to
another, simply because the latter man was gilt with gold, and decked
with jewels, and sweet with perfume from a hairdresser's. The poet
must have been wrong there. If love be anything but a dream, surely
it must adhere to the person, and not be liable to change at every
offered vantage of name or birth, of rank or wealth.

But she should have the offer. She should certainly have the offer.

CHAPTER XXXV.

THE SERJEANT AND MRS. BLUESTONE AT HOME.

Lady Anna was not told till the Saturday that she was to meet her
lover, the tailor, on the following Monday. She was living at
this time, as it were, in chains, though the chains were gilded.
It was possible that she might be off at any moment with Daniel
Thwaite,--and now the more possible because he had money at his
command. If this should occur, then would the game which the Countess
and her friends were play