call, myself, at Queen Anne Street. I
therefore send my confidential clerk with four bills, each
of five hundred pounds, drawn at fourteen days' date,
across which I will get you to write your name. Mr Levy
will show you the way in which this should be done. Your
name must come under the word "accepted," and just above
the name of Messrs Drummonds, where the money must be
lying ready, at any rate, not later than Monday fortnight.
Indeed, the money must be there some time on the Saturday.
They know you so well at Drummonds' that you will not
object to call on the Saturday afternoon, and ask if it is
all right.

I have certainly been inconvenienced by not finding the
money as I expected on my return to town. If these bills
are not properly provided for, the result will be very
disastrous to me. I feel, however, sure that this will be
done, both for your own sake and for mine.

Affectionately yours,

GEORGE VAVASOR.

The unparalleled impudence of this letter had the effect which the
writer had intended. It made Alice think immediately of her own
remissness,--if she had been remiss,--rather than of the enormity of
his claim upon her. The decision with which he asked for her money,
without any pretence at an excuse on his part, did for the time
induce her to believe that she had no alternative but to give it to
him, and that she had been wrong in delaying it. She had told him
that he should have it, and she ought to have been as good as her
word. She should not have forced upon him the necessity of demanding
it.

But the idea of signing four bills was terrible to her, and she felt
sure that she ought not to put her name to orders for so large an
amount and then intrust them to such a man as Mr Levy. Her father
was in the house, and she might have asked him. The thought that she
would do so of course occurred to her. But then it occurred to her
also that were she to speak to her father as to this advancing of
money to her cousin,--to this giving of money, for she now well
understood that it would be a gift;--were she to consult her father
in any way about it, he would hinder her, not only from signing the
bills for Mr Levy, but, as far as he could do so, from keeping the
promise made to her cousin. She was resolved that George should have
the money, and she knew that she could give it to him in spite of her
father. But her father might probably be able to delay