are not in my line and I know that
women have their prejudices. Still you can't expect me to look at the
matter in quite the same light as you do. And who is the gentleman?
Colonel Quaritch?"

She nodded her head.

"Oh," said the Squire, "I have nothing to say against Quaritch, indeed
I like the man, but I suppose that if he has 600 pounds a year, it is
every sixpence he can count on."

"I had rather marry him upon six hundred a year than Edward Cossey
upon sixty thousand."

"Ah, yes, I have heard young women talk like that before, though
perhaps they think differently afterwards. Of course I have no right
to obtrude myself, but when you are comfortably married, what is going
to become of Honham I should like to know, and incidentally of me?"

"I don't know, father, dear," she answered, her eyes filling with
tears; "we must trust to Providence, I suppose. I know you think me
very selfish," she went on, catching him by the arm, "but, oh, father!
there are things that are worse than death to women, or, at least, to
some women. I almost think that I would rather die than marry Edward
Cossey, though I should have gone through with it if he had kept his
word."

"No, no," said her father. "I can't wonder at it, and certainly I do
not ask you to marry a man whom you dislike. But still it is hard upon
me to have all this trouble at my age, and the old place coming to the
hammer too. It is enough to make a man wish that his worries were over
altogether. However, we must take things as we find them, and we find
them pretty rough. Quaritch said he was coming back this evening,
didn't he? I suppose there will not be any public engagement at
present, will there? And look here, Ida, I don't want him to come
talking to me about it. I have got enough things of my own to think of
without bothering my head with your love affairs. Pray let the matter
be for the present. And now I am going out to see that fellow George,
who hasn't been here since he came back from London, and a nice bit of
news it will be that I shall have to tell him."

When her father had gone Ida did a thing she had not done for some
time--she wept a little. All her fine intentions of self-denial had
broken down, and she felt humiliated at the fact. She had intended to
sacrifice herself upon the altar of her duty and to make herself the
wedded wife of a man whom she disliked, and now on the first
opportunity she had thrown up the contract on a quibble--a point