"I declare," said the milder brother, "you talk as if you were fattening a pig, and I was watching the yard. You come and look over the palings, and gloat over your future satisfaction, and compliment me if the prospect is pleasing to you. Mind you, I don’t think you have any supreme claim on the girl." "Have _you_?" "Certainly not." "Well, what’s the use of talking nonsense, Jack? If I marry her, it will be as good for you as for me." "How?" said the lawyer, coldly, and with affected carelessness. "Well," replied the Count, with some embarrassment, "there’s the money, you see, coming into the family. That’s a great matter." "Yes, to _you_," said John Hubbard. The Count looked at him for a moment; perhaps a thought struck him just then that, after all, his brother might be sincere in his view of the matter, and might testify his sincerity by carrying off the prize for himself. "Gad, he can’t do that very well," said the Count to himself, with a merry laugh, when he came to reflect on the conversation, "or what would Jane say? The girl is useless to him, so what’s the use of his talking nonsense? Her money is safe from him, if safe from anybody." But the more the Count thought over the affair, the less did he like the tone that his brother had lately assumed in talking of Annie Brunel. Further, he would have been as well pleased had he known that Miss Brunel was not _quite_ so comfortable in his brother’s house. These things were the subject of much conjecture and calculation on his part. They were also the theme of his after-dinner musings. Now, after-dinner dreams and resolves are very beautiful at times; but they should never be put down on paper. In an evil hour—it was one evening after he had dined, all by himself, in that great house down in Kent—he placed the following words in a letter to his brother: "Balnacluith House, near St. Mary-Kirby, "Jan. 17, 18—. "DEAR JOHN,