e daily allowance of
slaughter, he contrived to find Sir Thomas in the solitude of his own
room, and again began to act the part of Allan-a-Dale. "I thought,
Mr. Houston," said Sir Thomas, "that we had settled that matter
before."

"Not quite," said Houston.

"I don't know why you should say so. I intended to be understood as
expressing my mind."

"But you have been good enough to ask me down here."

"I may ask a man to my house, I suppose, without intending to give
him my daughter's hand." Then he again asked the important question,
to which Allan-a-Dale's answer was so unreasonable and so successful.
"Have you an income on which to maintain my daughter?"

"I cannot just say that I have, Sir Thomas," said Houston,
apologetically.

"Then you mean to ask me to furnish you with an income."

"You can do as you please about that, Sir Thomas."

"You can hardly marry her without it."

"Well; no; not altogether. No doubt it is true that I should not have
proposed myself had I not thought that the young lady would have
something of her own."

"But she has nothing of her own," said Sir Thomas. And then that
interview was over.

"You won't throw us over, Lady Tringle?" Houston said to Gertrude's
mother that evening.

"Sir Thomas likes to have his own way," said Lady Tringle.

"Somebody got round him about Septimus Traffick."

"That was different," said Lady Tringle. "Mr. Traffick is in
Parliament, and that gives him an employment. He is a son of Lord
Boardotrade, and some of these days he will be in office."

"Of course, you know that if Gertrude sticks to it she will have her
own way. When a girl sticks to it her father has to give way. What
does it matter to him whether I have any business or not? The money
would be the same in one case as the other, only it does seem such an
unnecessary trouble to have it put off."

All this Lady Tringle seemed to take in good part, and half
acknowledged that if Frank Houston were constant in the matter he
would succeed at last. Gertrude, when the time for his departure
had come, expressed herself as thoroughly disgusted by her father's
sternness. "It's all bosh," she said to her lover. "Who is Lord
Boardotrade that that should make a difference? I have as much right
to please myself as Augusta." But there was the stern fact that the
money had not been promised, and even Frank had not proposed to marry
the girl of his heart without the concomitant thousands.

Before he