'Alison--my dear Miss Cheyne--how often am I to assure you that I know of no such man? If he was a Captain, in presuming to call himself a friend of mine, and acting as he did, he deserved the most severe punishment; and let me assure you that as we were in Belgium I should have lost no time in inviting him to breathe the morning air on the ramparts, or anywhere else,' added Cadbury, in a valiant tone, even while wincing at the recollection of the invitation he had received for a similar 'breather' in the Lunette St. Laurent. 'I thought duels were as much out of fashion as hoops, patches, and hair powder,' said Alison, with a little mockery in her tone. 'So did I, by Jove,' responded Cadbury, with some fervour in his tone. Then he added--'And so Sir Ranald will not appear to-day?' 'No--he is too unwell, and it is only when I think of his condition,' said Alison, with a quiver of her sweet lip and downcast eyelashes, 'I feel such gratitude to the donor of my birthday gift--it has given me so many things for papa that, I am not ashamed to say, I could never have procured.' 'And you have got no certainty of who sent it to you?' asked Cadbury, with a curious and very artful modulation of voice, as he slightly patted her hand. 'No--though I may strongly suspect,' replied Alison, while a painful kind of blush suffused her pale cheek. 'Suspect! can't you guess, rather?' 'Unless--it was you--or the kindest of friends.' 'I do not admit quite that it was; but--' 'Admission or not, it _was_ you,' said Alison, with emotions of gratitude and humiliation struggling in her proud heart, while her beautiful eyes looked shrinkingly upward to his; 'but, oh, my heart tells me, with fear, that it may have come too late--too late.' 'Do not say so,' replied Cadbury, in his kindest tone. 'If I have not graces of the person to recommend me,' he added, in a low voice, 'I have--it is admitted--great wealth; if that will make you happy, it is yours--and _his_.' 'I cannot love you for what you may have, and you cannot love me for what I have only got--a loveless heart.' 'But I may love you for what you are. There is a writer who tells that "it is finer to be loved for what you are than for what you have got," because the looks and money often run away, but _you_ remain--unless you die, that is to say.' 'Again this detestable subject!' thought Alison. 'I pity the loneliness of the life you lead here,' said he, 'with your birds, fowls, and flowers only as your companions.' 'And better to me as such, than some people can ever be.' Cadbury was silent. There was the old dangerous glitter in his ferret-like eyes, and he tugged at his long white moustachios, but ere he could resume, Alison said, 'Excuse me, I must go to papa; I am sure I heard his bell.' So the peer withdrew, only to come next day in 'his anxiety about the health of his old friend.'