“Do you not see,” said he, “that she has not the least affection for you? she marries you only because she despairs of getting any other match; and because you are rich, and she is poor. She is seven years older than you, by her own confession, and consequently will be an old woman whilst you are a young man. She is, as you see--I mean as I see--vain and proud in the extreme; and if she honours you with her hand, she will think you can never do enough to make her amends for having married beneath her pretensions. Instead of finding in her, as I find in my wife, the best and most affectionate of friends, you will find her your torment through life; and consider, this is a torment likely to last these thirty or forty years. Is it not worth while to pause--to reflect for as many minutes, or even days?” Charles paused double the number of seconds, perhaps, and then replied, “You have married to please yourself, cousin William, and I shall marry to please myself. As I don’t mean to spend my days in the same style in which you do, the same sort of wife that makes you happy could never content me. I mean to make some figure in the world; I know no other use of fortune; and an alliance with the Germaines brings me at once into fashionable society. Miss Maude Germaine is very proud, I confess; but she has some reason to be proud of her family; and then, you see, her love for me conquers her pride, great as it is.” William sighed when he saw the extent of his cousin’s folly. The partnership between the two Darfords was dissolved. It cost our hero much money but no great trouble to get his name changed from Darford to Germaine; and it was certainly very disadvantageous to his pecuniary interest to purchase Germaine-park, which was sold to him for at least three years’ purchase more than its value: but, in the height of his impatience to get into the fashionable world, all prudential motives appeared beneath his consideration. It was, as he fancied, part of the character of a man of spirit, the character he was now to assume and support for life, to treat pecuniary matters as below his notice. He bought Germaine-park, married Miss Germaine, and determined no mortal should ever find out, by his equipages or style of life, that he had not been born the possessor of this estate.