“Mean? Now, Joan, don’t you begin trying your humbug on me: keep that for the men. You’re not going to pretend that you haven’t been making love to the Captain—I beg his pardon, Sir Henry he is now—as hard as you know how. Well, it seems that you have bamboozled him finely, and have made him so sweet on your pretty face that he’s going to throw over marrying the Levinger girl in order to marry you, for that’s what it comes to, and you may very well be proud of it. But don’t you be carried away; you wouldn’t take my advice about Samuel Rock, and I spoke to you rough that night on purpose, for I wanted you to make sure of one or the other. Well, take my advice about Sir Henry. Remember there is many a slip between the cup and the lip, and that out of sight is apt to be out of mind. Don’t you keep out of sight too long. You strike while the iron is hot, and marry him; on the quiet if you like, but marry him. Of course there will be a row, but all the rows under heaven can’t unmake a wife and a ladyship. Now listen to me. I have gone out of my way to talk to you like this, because you are a fine girl and I’m fond of you, which is more than you are of me, and I should like to see you get on in the world; and perhaps when you’re up you will not forget your old aunt who is down. I tell you I have gone out of my way to give you this tip, for there’s some as won’t be pleased to see you turned into Lady Graves. Yes, there’s some who’d give a good deal to stop it: Samuel Rock, for instance; he don’t like parting, but he’d lay down something handsome, and I doubt if I’ll ever see the coin out of you that I might out of him and others, for after all you won’t be a rich woman at best. However, we must sacrifice ourselves at times, and that’s what I am doing on your account, Joan. And now, if you want to get a note up to Rosham, I will manage it for you. But perhaps you had better wait and go yourself.” [Illustration: ] ‘“My name? Oh! my name!” gasped Joan.’ Joan listened to this long address in amazement mingled with scorn. It would be hard to say which of its qualities disgusted her the most—its coarseness, its cunning, or its avarice. Above all these, however, it revolted her to learn that her aunt thought her capable of conceiving and carrying out so disgraceful a plot. What must the woman’s mind be like, that she could imagine such evil in others? And what had she, Joan, ever done, that she should be so misunderstood? “I don’t understand you, aunt: I don’t wish to marry Captain Graves,” she said simply. “Do you mean to tell me that you ain’t blind gone on him, and that he’s not gone on you, Joan?” “I said that I did not wish to marry him,” she answered, evading the question. “To marry a girl like me would be the ruin of him.” Mrs. Gillingwater stared at her niece as she lay on the bed before her; then she burst into a loud laugh.