"Thank you! You're kind and generous as ever! But it was not to talk of bygone times that I came here. Take my word, Susan, you're wrong in your treatment of this business." "As how, pray?" "You've played for a big stake with Barbara, and she won't have it! She's fallen in love, in real desperate love; no make-believe humbug, but regular love!" Miss Lexden shrugged her shoulders, raised her eyebrows, and tattooed impatiently with her foot. "God knows she's to be envied," said the old gentleman; "how many girls are there, do you think, who are booked for marriage before next spring, who would give their ears to feel to their future husbands as Barbara does to hers? It's not about her I'm come to preach, it's about you. You're behaving like an idiot, Susan,--worse than an idiot,--in thus refusing your countenance to the match." "You're growing horribly coarse in your language, Marmaduke, and unfit for me to listen to. But since you've broached the topic, hear me: I shall leave Bissett at once; and once gone, I shall never see Barbara again. I shall not give her one sixpence for her _trousseau_, or make one addition to her wardrobe. I will not allow her a penny, and I will strive to forget that I ever knew there was such a person on earth. She has grievously disappointed me, and been selfish and ungrateful; but I shall not cast her off, or do any thing melodramatic or nonsensical; I shall simply ignore her existence, and live on as though she had never been." Sir Marmaduke retired, boiling over with rage. An hour afterwards he sent for Barbara to the library and placing a cheque for 100_l_. in her hands, told her he had arranged with Mrs. Vincent to accompany her to town and get the requisite articles for her _trousseau_ at once. Her aunt was about to leave, he said; but Mrs. Vincent had promised to stop and act _chaperon_, and Miss Townshend would be bridesmaid. Let the wedding take place at once, since both the young people wished it, and let it be from Bissett. There would be no fuss, no tomfoolery; but no one should be able to say in future that there was any thing underhand or secret about her marriage, or that it was not properly countenanced by some of the family. If her aunt chose to be an old fool, that was her look-out, not his. And then the old gentleman kissed her on the forehead, and told her that while he lived she and Frank should never want a friend.