Lord Ashborough waved his hand, "Not at all, Mr. Tims! Not at all!" he said, "Your intentions, I know, are good. But hear me. We came in collision concerning the lady whom he afterwards married, and made a well-bred beggar of. He had known her, and, it seems, obtained promises from her before I became acquainted; and though a transitory fancy for her took place in my own bosom,"--and Lord Ashborough turned deadly pale,--"yet of course, whenever I heard of my cousins arrangements with her, I withdrew my claims, without, as you say, exerting power that I may flatter myself"---- He left the sentence unfinished, but he bowed his head proudly, which finished it sufficiently, and Mr. Tims immediately chimed in, "Oh, there can be no doubt--If your lordship had chosen--Who the deuce is Sir Sidney Delaware, compared"----&c. &c. &c. &c. "Well, I forgot the matter entirely," continued Lord Ashborough, in a frank and easy tone, for it is wonderful how the lawyer's little insignificances helped him on. "Well, I forgot the matter entirely." "But you never married any one else," thought the lawyer, "and you remember it now." All this was thought in the lowest possible tone, so that Satan himself could hardly hear it, but Lord Ashborough went on. "I never, indeed, remembered the business more, till, on lending the money to his father, I found from a letter which the late man, let me see that the present man, had not forgiven me some little progress I had made in the lady's affection. He said--I recollect the words very well--He said, that he could have borne his father borrowing the money at any rate of interest from any person but myself, who had endeavoured to supplant him--and all the rest that you can imagine. Well, from that moment I determined to bow that man's pride, for his own sake, as well as other people's. I thought I had done so pretty well too; but, on my refusing to suffer the redemption--which no one can doubt that I had a right to do--he wrote me that letter;" and his lordship threw across the table, to his solicitor, the letter which he had taken out of the drawer, just as the other entered. It was in the form of a note, and couched in the following terms:-- "Sir Sidney Delaware acknowledges the receipt of Lord Ashborough's letter, formally declining to accept the offer he made to redeem the annuity chargeable upon the estate of Emberton. The motives, excuses, or apologies--whichever Lord Ashborough chooses to designate the sentences that conclude his letter--were totally unnecessary, as Sir Sidney Delaware was too well acquainted with Lord Ashborough, in days of old, not to appreciate fully the principles on which he acts at present. "Emberton Park, 1_st September_, 18--."