"Ha, ha! I know you too well for that."

"Do you? You flatter yourself, I think. Perhaps you may some day find your mistake."

"Not a bit of it. You love me too well. Fan, as I do you. It is just for that I am going to make the proposal."

"Out with it! I shan't like you any the better for thus tantalising me.

Come, Dick; you want me to grant something? What is it?"

"Give me your permission to--"

"To do what?"

"_To get married again_!"

The wife of twelve months started, as if struck by a shot. In her glance there was anger and surprise, only subdued by interrogation.

"Are you in earnest, Dick?"

The inquiry was mechanical. She saw that he was.

"Wait till you've heard me out," he rejoined, proceeding to the explanation.

She waited.

"What I propose, then, is this: You leave me free to _get married again_. More than that, give me your help to accomplish it--for our mutual benefit. It's the very country for such a scheme; and I flatter myself I'm the very man who may bring it to a satisfactory conclusion.

These Yankees have been growing rich. There are now scores--hundreds of heiresses among them. Strange if I can't pick one of them up! They must either be daintier than you, Fan, or else I've lost my attractions."

The appeal to her vanity, skilful though it was, failed to elicit a rejoinder. She remained silent, permitting her husband to continue his explanation. He continued:

"It's no use shutting our eyes to the situation. We've both been speaking the truth. We've made fools of ourselves. Your beauty has been the means of spoiling _my_ chances in life; and my--well, good looks, if I must say it--have done the same for _you_. It's been a mutual love, and a reciprocal ruin--in short, a sell on both sides."

"True enough. Go on?"

"The prospect before us! I, the son of a poor prebend; you--well, it's no use to talk of family affairs. We came over here in hopes of bettering our condition. The land of milk and honey turns out to be but gall and bitterness. We've but one hundred pounds left. When that's gone, what next, Fan?"

Fan could not tell.

"We may expect but slight consideration for gentility here," continued the adventurer. "Our cash once spent, what can I do--or what you? I know of nothing, except to take hold of the delicate ribbons of a street hack; while you must attune your musical ear to the tinkle of a sewing-machine, or the creaking of a mangle. By heaven! there'll be no help for it?"

The _ci-devant_ belle of Brompton, appalled by the prospect, started up from the rocking-chair, and once more commenced pacing the room.

Suddenly she stopped, and, turning to her husband, inquired:

"_Do you intend to be true to me, Dick_?"

The question was put in an eager, earnest tone.

Equally earnest was the answer:

"Of course I do. How can you doubt me, Fan? We're both alike interested in the speculation. You may trust me as steel!"

"I agree to it, then, Dick. But dread steel if you betray me!"

Dick answered the threat with a light laugh; at the same time imprinting a Judas kiss on the lips that had pronounced it!

CHAPTER SEVEN.

A DUTIFUL DAUGHTER.

"An officer just returned from Mexico--a captain, or something of the sort, in one of the regiments raised for the war. Of course, a nobody!"

It was the storekeeper's relict who spoke.

"Did you hear his name, mamma?" murmured Julia.

"Certainly, my dear. The clerk pointed it out on the hotel register-- Maynard."

"Maynard! If it be the Captain Maynard spoken of in the papers, he's not such a nobody. At least the despatches do not say so. Why, it was he who led the forlorn hope at C--, besides being first over the bridge at some other place with an unpronounceable name?"

"Stuff about forlorn hopes and bridges! That won't help him, now that he is out of the service, and his regiment disbanded. Of course he'll be without either pension or pay, besides a _soupcon_ of his having empty pockets. I got so much out of the servant who waits upon him."

"He is to be pitied for that."

"Pity him as much as you like, my dear; but don't let it go any further.

Heroes are all very well in their way, when they've got the dollars to back 'em up. Without these they don't count for much now-a-days; and rich girls don't go marrying them any more."

"Ha! ha! ha! Who thinks of marrying him?" Daughter and niece simultaneously asked the question.

"No flirtations neither," gravely rejoined Mrs Girdwood. "I won't allow them--certainly not with him."

"And why not with him, as much as any one else, most honoured mother?"

"Many reasons. We don't know who or what he may be. He don't appear to have the slightest acquaintance with any one in the place; and no one is acquainted with him. He's a stranger in this country, and believed to be Irish."

"Oh, aunt! I should not think any the worse of him for that. My own father was Irish."

"Whatever he may be, he's a brave man, and a gallant one," quietly rejoined Julia.

"And a handsome one, too!" added Cornelia, with a sly glance towards her cousin.

"I should think," pursued Julia, "that he who has climbed a scaling-ladder--to say nothing about the bridge--and who afterward, at the risk of his life, pulls two not very light young ladies up the face of a perpendicular precipice, might dispense with any farther introduction to society; even to the J.'s, the L.'s, and the B.'s--the '_cream_,' as they call themselves."

"Pff!" scornfully exclaimed the mother. "Any gentleman would have done the same; and would have done it for any lady. Why, he made no difference between you and Keziah, who is almost as heavy as both of you in a bundle!"

The remark caused the two young ladies to break forth into a fit of laughter; for they remembered at the time they had been saved from their peril the ludicrous look of the negress as she was drawn up to the crest of the cliff. Had she not been the last in the ascent, their remembrance of it might have been less vivid.

"Well, girls; I'm glad to see that you enjoy it. You may laugh as much as you like; but I'm in earnest. There must be no marrying in such a quarter as that, nor flirting either. I don't want either of you talked about. As for you, Corneel, I don't pretend to exercise any control over you. Of course you can act as you please."