JILTED! OR, MY UNCLE’S SCHEME. JILTED! OR, MY UNCLE’S SCHEME. A Novel, in Three Vols. VOL. III. London: SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, LOW, & SEARLE, CROWN BUILDINGS, FLEET STREET. 1875. [_All Rights Reserved._] CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS, CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS. CONTENTS. PAGE CHAPTER I. 1 CHAPTER II. 26 CHAPTER III. 48 CHAPTER IV. 80 CHAPTER V. 119 CHAPTER VI. 158 CHAPTER VII. 184 CHAPTER VIII. 207 JILTED! OR, MY UNCLE’S SCHEME. MY UNCLE’S SCHEME. CHAPTER I. “What’s the use of snivelling, And worrying and drivelling? Sure you might give over now, And get another lover.” _A Chorus._ Meanwhile, had I wanted solace, it lay close at hand. Theresa was as kind to me as she had been, on our first meeting, rude. I rode with her, sometimes twice a day, and got to like the exercise so well, that I looked forward to it with pleasure. I don’t say the pleasure wasn’t immensely increased by my companion. She talked charmingly, with a mixture of vivacity and good sense that made her conversation refreshing to listen to. She _was_ well-read, as her father had affirmed, but displayed her stores with so much tact and modesty, that I never remember hearing her make a learned allusion of which the appropriateness to the matter under discussion did not entirely extinguish every suspicion of pedantry. It was manifestly her resolution to charm out of my memory the very false impression of her character she had sought to establish. The sense that my heart belonged to another made her feel perfectly easy with me. She would speak her mind on a great variety of subjects; sentimental arguments were frequent; we could talk of love in an “aibstract sense” like Sidney Smith’s Scotch young lady; reason on the emotions, and puzzle each other with metaphysics. We were both perfectly honest and knew no danger. Moreover we were cousins, and everybody knows the nature of cousins’ rights.