“No; he never said that,” muttered she, half reluctantly. “What he said was that if disparity of condition was the only barrier between us,--if he were sure, or if he could even hope, that worldly success could open an avenue to my heart--” “That he 'd go and be Prime Minister of England next session. 'If doughty deeds My lady please!' That was his tone, was it? Oh dear! and I fancied the man had something new or original about him. Truth is, dearest, it is in love as in war,-- there are nothing but the same old weapons to fight with, and we are lost or won just as our great-great-grandmothers were before us.” “I wish you would be serious, Lucy,” said the girl, half rebukefully. “Don't you know me well enough by this time to perceive that I am never more thoughtful than in what seems my levity? and this on principle, too, for in the difficulties of life Fancy will occasionally suggest a remedy Reason had never hit upon, just as sportsmen will tell you that a wild, untrained spaniel will often flush a bird a more trained dog had never 'marked.' And now, to be most serious, you want to choose between the eligible man who is sure of you, and the most unequal suitor who despairs of his success. Is not that your case?” May shook her head dissentingly. “Well, it is sufficiently near the issue for our purpose. Not so? Come, then, I 'll put it differently. You are balancing whether to refuse your fortune to Charles Heathcote or yourself to Alfred Layton; and my advice is, do both.” May grew very pale, and, after an effort to say something, was silent. “Yes, dearest, between the man who never pledges to pay and him who offers a bad promissory note, there is scant choice, and I 'd say, take neither.” “I know how it will wound my dear old guardian, who loves me like a daughter,” began May. But the other broke in,-- “Oh! there are scores of things one can do in life to oblige one's friends, but marriage is not one of them. And then, bethink you, May, how little you have seen of the world; and surely there is a wider choice before you than between a wearied lounger on half-pay and a poor tutor.” “Yes; a poor tutor if you will, but of a name and family the equal of my own,” said May, hastily, and with a dash of temper in the words. “Who says so? Who has told you that?” “He himself. He told me that though there were some painful circumstances in his family history he would rather not enter upon, that, in point of station, he yielded to none in the rank of untitled gentry. He spoke of his father as a man of the very highest powers.” “Did he tell you what station he occupied at this moment?” “No. And do you know it?” “Yes,” said Mrs. Morris, gravely. “Will you not tell me, Lucy?” asked May, eagerly. “No; there is not any reason that I should. You have just said, 'What is Mr. Layton to me, or I to him?' and in the face of such a confession why should I disparage him?” “So, then, the confession would disparage him?” “It might.”