'Tell your friends, then,' said she, and with such an emphasis on the word,--'tell your friends that I refused you!' and giving her mare a tremendous cut of the whip, she dashed off at speed, and was up with the others before I had even presence of mind to follow her.” “You behaved devilish badly,--infamously. If I 'd been her brother, I'd have shot you like a dog!” cried Dan, rising, and walking the room. “I see it,” said my father, covering his face with his handkerchief. “I am sorry I said that, Watty,--I don't mean that,” said Dan, laying his hand on my father's shoulder. “It all comes of that infernal system of interference! If they had left you alone, and to the guidance of your own feelings, you 'd never have gone wrong. But the world will poke in its d----d finger everywhere. It's rather hard, when good-breeding protests against the bystander meddling with your game at chess, that he should have the privilege of obtruding on the most eventful incident of your existence.” “Let us never speak of this again, Dan,” said my father, looking up with eyes that were far from clear. MacNaghten squeezed his band, and said nothing. “What have you been doing with Tony Fagan, Dan?” said my father, suddenly. “Have you drawn too freely on the Grinder, and exhausted the liberal resources of his free-giving nature?” “Nothing of the kind; he has closed his books against me this many a day. But why do you ask this?” “Look here.” And he opened a drawer and showed a whole mass of papers, as he spoke. “Fagan, whom I regarded as an undrainable well of the precious metals, threatens to run dry; he sends me back bills unaccepted, and actually menaces me with a reckoning.” “What a rascal, not to be satisfied with forty or fifty per cent!” “He might have charged sixty, Dan, if he would only 'order the bill to lie on the table.' But see, he talks of a settlement, and even hints at a lawyer.” “You ought to have married Polly.” “Pray, is there any one else that I should have married, Dan?” cried my father, half angrily; “for it seems to me that you have quite a passion for finding out alliances for me.” “Polly, they say, will have three hundred thousand pounds,” said Dan, slowly, “and is a fine girl to boot. I assure you, Watty, I saw her the other day, seated in the library here; and with all the splendor of your stained-glass windows, your gold-fretted ceiling, and your gorgeous tapestries, she looked just in her place. Hang me, if there was a particle of the picture in better style or taste than herself.” “How came she here?” cried my father, in amazement. And MacNaghten now related all the circumstances of Fagan's visit, the breakfast, and the drive. “And you actually sat with three hundred thousand pounds at your side,” said my father, “and did not decamp with it?” “I never said she had the money in her pocket, Watty. Egad! that would have been a very tempting situation.”