"Sir! Mr Trevanion! I--no--never, never so base! In your house, trusted by you,--how could you think it? I dared, it may be, to love--at all events, to feel that I could not be insensible to a temptation too strong for me. But to say it to your daughter--to ask love in return--I would as soon have broken open your desk! Frankly I tell you my folly: it is a folly, not a disgrace." Trevanion came up to me abruptly, as I leant against the book-case, and, grasping my hand with a cordial kindness, said,--"Pardon me! You have behaved as your father's son should--I envy him such a son! Now, listen to me--I cannot give you my daughter--" "Believe me, sir, I never--" "Tut, listen! I cannot give you my daughter. I say nothing of inequality--all gentlemen are equal; and if not, all impertinent affectation of superiority, in such a case, would come ill from one who owes his own fortune to his wife! But, as it is, I have a stake in the world, won not by fortune only, but the labour of a life, the suppression of half my nature--the drudging, squaring, taming down--all that made the glory and joy of my youth--to be that hard matter-of-fact thing which the English world expect in a--_statesman_! This station has gradually opened into its natural result--power! I tell you I shall soon have high office in the administration: I hope to render great services to England--for we English politicians, whatever the mob and the press say of us, are not selfish placehunters. I refused office, as high as I look for now, ten years ago. We believe in our opinions, and we hail the power that may carry them into effect. In this cabinet I shall have enemies. Oh, don't think we leave jealousy behind us, at the doors of Downing Street! I shall be one of a minority. I know well what must happen: like all men in power, I must strengthen myself by other heads and hands than my own. My daughter should bring to me the alliance of that house in England which is most necessary to me. My life falls to the ground, like a house of cards, if I waste--I do not say on you, but on men of ten times your fortune (whatever that be,)--the means of strength which are at my disposal in the hand of Fanny Trevanion. To this end I have looked; but to this end her mother has schemed--for these household matters are within a man's hopes, but belong to a woman's policy. So much for us. But for you, my dear, and frank, and high-souled young friend--for you, if I were not Fanny's father--if I were your nearest relation, and Fanny could be had for the asking, with all her princely dower, (for it is princely,)--for you I should say, fly from a load upon the heart, on the genius, the energy, the pride, and the spirit, which not one man in ten thousand can bear; fly from the curse of owing every thing to a wife!--it is a reversal of all natural position, it is a blow to all the manhood within us. You know not what it is: I do! My wife's fortune came not till after marriage--so far, so well;