"Sometimes you get odd touches of perversity, and the very fact of a thing being quite unexceptional sets you against it. I remember it so well when you were a boy. It would have been a sad misfortune in this case, though, of course, it is too momentous a matter for me to have said much about it beforehand. I suppose that is the reason you did not know how anxious I felt, but I assure you I have scarcely thought of anything else. And Phillis is at Bologna! When do they come on?" "To-morrow--Saturday. I don't exactly remember. I suppose you know the terms of the agreement?" said Jack, looking at her. "My dear!" "Well, it is an agreement," he said perversely; "what else would you call it? I, Peter Thornton, of Hetherton Grange, in the county of Surrey, Esquire, do hereby declare you, John Francis Ibbetson, barrister--how shall I put the London lodgings, second floor, to best advantage?--to be the heir of all my estates and properties--excluding, let us hope, his gout and his temper--on condition that you take as your wife my step-niece, Mary Phillis Grey, to have and to hold with the timber, freeholds, messuages, and other etceteras of the said estate. If that is not an agreement, I don't know the meaning of the word." Miss Cartwright, leaning forward, tried to look into her nephew's face. "My dear," she said slowly, "of course you are in joke, but I don't think I like to hear you talk in such a way. I should be miserable if I did not feel sure you were quite happy." Jack turned round and took her soft hand very kindly in his own. "Well, then, don't be miserable," he said lightly; "why, you know it stands to reason that every one must be perfectly happy directly he or she is engaged to be married. What shall I do to prove my load of bliss?" But she shook her head. "I sometimes fancy it would be better if money were not mixed up with marriages at all. I don't think it was so much thought about in old days." "It is a stronger necessity now." "Your father would willingly increase your allowance." "I don't choose to live on that woman's fortune. Aunt Mary, I thought you would be the first to congratulate me on the splendour of my prospects!" "My dear, and so I do," she said quickly, laying her hand on his shoulder; "I do, with all my heart. If I ask these questions it is only that I care so very, very much, that I was afraid, Jack, whether you might have rushed into this without quite thinking enough beforehand. But I dare say that was only my foolish fancy. Tell me one thing: if you had not married Phillis would your uncle have left the estates to her?" "Not he," said the young man, flinging a stone into the bushes where Cartouche was still annoying the cat. "He told me in so many words, that unless I married her she would be penniless, and the money would go to some tenth cousin or so." "I hope the poor girl did not know this," said Miss Cartwright uneasily.