"Yes; and I think will do so. Bessy shall go to him; and be emancipated from her thraldom here." "Oliver Rane has no furniture in his house." "He has some. The dining-room and his bedroom are as handsomely furnished as need be. We can send in a little more. There are some things at the Hall that were Bessy's own mother's, and she shall have them. They have not been thought much of here, Dick, amidst the grand things that madam has filled the house with." "She'll make a fuss, though, at their being removed," remarked Dick. "Let her," retorted Mr. North, who could be brave as the best when two or three hundred miles lay between him and madam. "Those things were your own dear mother's, Dick; she bought them with her own money before she married me, and I have always regarded them as heir-looms for Bessy. It's just a few plain solid mahogany things, as good as ever they were. It was our drawing-room furniture in the early days, and it will do for their drawing-room now. When Rane is making his six or seven hundred a-year, they can buy finer if they choose. We thought great things of it; I know that." Richard smiled. "I remember once when I was a very little fellow, my mother came in and caught me drawing a horse on the centre-table with pen-and-ink. The trouble she had to get the horse out!--and the whipping I had!" "Poor Dick! She did not whip often." "It did me good, sir. I have been scrupulously careful of furniture ever since." "Ah, nothing like the lessons of early childhood for making an impression," spoke Mr. North. "'Spare the rod and spoil the child!' There was never a truer saying than that." "Then you really intend them to marry at once," said Richard, returning to the question. "I do," replied Mr. North in more decisive tones than he usually spoke. "They both wish it: and why should I hold out against them? Bessy's thirty this year, you know, Dick: if girls are not wives at that age, they begin to think it hard. It's better to marry tolerably young: a man and woman don't shake down into each other's ways if they come together late in life. You are silent, Dick." "I was thinking, sir, whether I could not manage a couple of hundred pounds for them from myself." "You are ever generous, Dick. I don't know what we should all do without you." "The question is--shall I give it over to them in money, or spend it for them in furniture?" "In money; in money, Dick," advised Mr. North. "The furniture can be managed; and cash is cash. Spend it in chairs and tables and it seems as if there were nothing tangible to show for it." Richard smiled. "It strikes me that the argument lies the other way, sir. However, I think it will be better to do as you advise. Bessy shall have two hundred pounds handed to her after her marriage, and they can do what they consider best with it."