ame
for L5. After the L300 she had lately given, and the many smaller sums
she was giving constantly, it was as much as she could at present
afford. Donne looked at it, declared the subscription "shabby," and
clamorously demanded more. Miss Keeldar flushed up with some indignation
and more astonishment.

"At present I shall give no more," said she.

"Not give more! Why, I expected you to head the list with a cool
hundred. With your property, you should never put down a signature for
less."

She was silent.

"In the south," went on Donne, "a lady with a thousand a year would be
ashamed to give five pounds for a public object."

Shirley, so rarely haughty, looked so now. Her slight frame became
nerved; her distinguished face quickened with scorn.

"Strange remarks?" said she--"most inconsiderate! Reproach in return for
bounty is misplaced."

"Bounty! Do you call five pounds bounty?"

"I do; and bounty which, had I not given it to Dr. Boultby's intended
school, of the erection of which I approve, and in no sort to his
curate, who seems ill-advised in his manner of applying for, or rather
extorting, subscriptions--bounty, I repeat, which, but for this
consideration, I should instantly reclaim."

Donne was thick-skinned. He did not feel all or half that the tone, air,
glance of the speaker expressed. He knew not on what ground he stood.

"Wretched place this Yorkshire," he went on. "I could never have formed
an idea_r_ of the country had I not seen it. And the people--rich and
poor--what a set! How _corse_ and uncultivated! They would be scouted in
the south."

Shirley leaned forwards on the table, her nostrils dilating a little,
her taper fingers interlaced and compressing each other hard.

"The rich," pursued the infatuated and unconscious Donne, "are a parcel
of misers, never living as persons with their incomes ought to live. You
scarsley"--(you must excuse Mr. Donne's pronunciation, reader; it was
very choice; he considered it genteel, and prided himself on his
southern accent; northern ears received with singular sensations his
utterance of certain words)--"you scarsley ever see a fam'ly where a
propa carriage or a reg'la butla is kep; and as to the poor--just look
at them when they come crowding about the church doors on the occasion
of a marriage or a funeral, clattering in clogs; the men in their
shirt-sleeves and wool-combers' aprons, the women in mob-caps and
bed-gowns. They positively deserve that