"Well, so you are--a dear, darling, stupid old brother," cried the girl, leaping up to go behind the young doctors chair, covered his eyes with her hands, and place her little soft white double chin on the top of his head. "There you are! Blind as a bat! Five hundred pounds! Pooh! Rubbish! Stuff! Why, it's worth thousands and thousands, and, what is more, happiness to my own old Pierce." "I thought that subject was tabooed, Sissy." "I don't care; I have broken the taboo. I have risen in rebellion, and I'll fight till I die for my principles." "Brave little baby," he said mockingly, as he took the little hands from his eyes and prisoned them. "Yes," she said, meaningly, "braver than you know." "Jenny! You have not dared to speak about such a thing?" he cried, turning upon her angrily. "Not such a little silly," she replied. "What! make her draw in her horns and retire into her shell, and begin thinking my own dear boy is a miserable money-hunter? Not I, indeed. For shame, sir, to think such a thing of me! I never even told her what a dear good fellow you are, worrying yourself to death to keep me, and bringing me to live in the country, because you thought I was pining and growing pale in nasty old Westminster and its slums." "That's right," said Pierce, with a faint sigh. "Let her find out naturally what you are; and she is finding it out, for don't you make any mistake about it, Miss Katherine Wilton is young, but she has plenty of shrewd common sense, as I soon found out, and little as I have seen of her I soon saw that she was quite awake to her position. Girls of sense who have fortunes soon smell out people's motives; and if they think they are going to marry her right off to that out-door sport, Claud, they have made a grand mistake." "But you have not dared to talk about your foolish ideas to her, Jenny?" "Not a word. Oh, timid, modest frere! I put on my best frock and my best manners when we went there to dinner, and I was as nice and ladylike as a girl could be. Reward:--Kate took to me at once, and we became friends." Leigh uttered a sigh of relief. "But if I had dared I could have told her what a coward you are, and how ashamed I am of you." "For not playing the part of a contemptible schemer, Sis?" "Who wants you to, sir? Why, money has nothing to do with it. Now, answer me this, Pierce. If she were only Miss Wilton without a penny, wouldn't you propose for her at once?" "No, Sis; I would not." "You wouldn't?" "No, I wouldn't be so contemptible as to take such a step when I am little better than a pauper."