er, thought differently;
and though they did not attempt to dissuade me from my marriage, they
suggested that I should try some means of overcoming this prejudice; at
all events, that I should not hurry on the match without an effort to
obtain his consent. I agreed,--not very willingly, indeed,--and so the
matter remained. The circumstance was well known amongst my two or three
most intimate friends, and constantly discussed by them. I need n't tell
you that the tone in which such things are talked of as often partakes
of levity as seriousness. They gave me all manner of absurd counsels,
one more outrageously ridiculous than the other. At last, one day,--we
were picnicking at Baia,--Old Clifford,--you remember that original
who had the famous schooner-yacht 'The Breeze,'--well, he took me aside
after dinner, and said, 'Glencore, I have it,--I have just hit upon the
expedient. Your uncle and I were old chums at Christ Church fifty years
ago. What if we were to tell him that you were going to marry a daughter
of mine? I don't think he'd object. I 'm half certain he 'd not. I have
been abroad these five-and-thirty years. Nobody in England knows much
about me now. Old Herrick can't live forever; he is my senior by a good
ten or twelve years; and if the delusion only lasts his time--'

"'But perhaps you have a daughter?' broke I in.

"'I have, and she is married already, so there is no risk on that
score.' I need n't repeat all that he said for, nor that I urged
against, the project; for though it was after dinner, and we all had
drunk very freely, the deception was one I firmly rejected. When a man
shows a great desire to serve you on a question of no common difficulty,
it is very hard to be severe upon his counsels, however unscrupulous
they may be. In fact, you accept them as proofs of friendship only the
stronger, seeing how much they must have cost him to offer."

Upton smiled dubiously, and Glencore, blushing slightly, said, "You
don't concur in this, I perceive."

"Not exactly," said Upton, in his silkiest of tones; "I rather regard
these occasions as I should do the generosity of a man who, filling my
hand with base money, should say, 'Pass it if you can!'"

"In this case, however," resumed Glencore, "he took his share of the
fraud, or at least was willing to do so, for I distinctly said 'No' to
the whole scheme. He grew very warm about it; at one moment appealing to
my 'good sense, not to kick seven thousand a y