d he put her into the scales, and he found
that she was much the heavier of the two. How he did this--how such men
as Archie Clavering do do it--I cannot say; but they do weigh
themselves, and know their own weight, and shove themselves aside as
being too light for any real service in the world. This they do, though
they may fluster with their voices, and walk about with their noses in
the air, and swing their canes, and try to look as large as they may.
They do not look large, and they know it; and, consequently, they ring
the bells, and look after the horses, and shove themselves on one side,
so that the heavier weights may come forth and do the work. Archie
Clavering, who had duly weighed himself, could hardly bring himself to
believe that Lady Ongar would be fool enough to marry him! Seven
thousand a year, with a park and farm in Surrey, and give it all to
him--him, Archie Clavering, who had, so to say, no weight at all! Archie
Clavering, for one, could not bring himself to believe it.

But yet Hermy, her sister, thought it possible; and though Hermy was, as
Archie had found out by his invisible scales, lighter than Julia, still
she must know something of her sister's nature. And Hugh, who was by no
means light--who was a man of weight, with money and position, and firm
ground beneath his feet--he also thought that it might be so. "Faint
heart never won a fair lady," said Archie to himself a dozen times, as
he walked down to the Rag. The Rag was his club, and there was a friend
there whom he could consult confidentially. No; faint heart never won a
fair lady; but they who repeat to themselves that adage, trying thereby
to get courage, always have faint hearts for such work. Harry Clavering
never thought of the proverb when he went a-wooing.

But Captain Boodle of the Rag--for Captain Boodle always lived at the
Rag when he was not at Newmarket, or at other race-courses, or in the
neighborhood of Market Harborough--Captain Boodle knew a thing or two,
and Captain Boodle was his fast friend. He would go to Boodle and
arrange the campaign with him. Boodle had none of that hectoring,
domineering way which Hugh never quite threw off in his intercourse with
his brother. And Archie, as he went along, resolved that when Lady
Ongar's money was his, and when he had a countess for his wife, he would
give his elder brother a cold shoulder.

Boodle was playing pool at the Rag, and Archie joined him; but pool is a
game which hard