m. This had been
promised, and he did so before he had seen Sir Harry.

DEAR LADY A.--I have been successful with my younger
cousin. She is the bonniest, and the best, and the
brightest girl that ever lived, and I am the happiest
fellow. But I have not as yet seen the Baronet. I am to do
so to-night, and will report progress to-morrow. I doubt I
shan't find him so bonny and so good and so bright. But,
as you say, the young birds ought to be too strong for the
old ones.--Yours most sincerely,

G. H.

This was written while he was dressing, and was put into the
letter-box by himself as he came downstairs. It was presumed that the
party had dined at the Falls; but there was "a tea" prepared for them
on an extensive scale. Sir Harry, suspecting nothing, was happy and
almost jovial with Mr. Fitzpatrick and the two young ladies. Emily
said hardly a word. Lady Elizabeth, who had not as yet been told, but
already suspected something, was very anxious. George was voluble,
witty, and perhaps a little too loud. But as the lad who was going
to Oxford, and who had drank a good deal of champagne and was now
drinking sherry, was loud also, George's manner was not specially
observed. It was past ten before they got up from the table, and
nearly eleven before George was able to whisper a word to the
Baronet. He almost shirked it for that night, and would have done so
had he not remembered how necessary it was that Emily should know
that his pluck was good. Of course she would be asked to abandon him.
Of course she would be told that it was her duty to give him up. Of
course she would give him up unless he could get such a hold upon her
heart as to make her doing so impossible to her. She would have to
learn that he was an unprincipled spendthrift,--nay worse than that,
as he hardly scrupled to tell himself. But he need not weight his own
character with the further burden of cowardice. The Baronet could
not eat him, and he would not be afraid of the Baronet. "Sir Harry,"
he whispered, "could you give me a minute or two before we go to
bed?" Sir Harry started as though he had been stung, and looked his
cousin sharply in the face without answering him. George kept his
countenance, and smiled.

"I won't keep you long," he said.

"You had better come to my room," said Sir Harry, gruffly, and
led the way into his own sanctum. When there, he sat down in his
accustomed arm-chair without offering George a s