"It cannot surprise you, sir, that I should have been made acquainted with it immediately on my return home yesterday evening. It was undoubtedly my sister's _duty_ to do so; but she did it, I am bound to acknowledge to you, sir, with great reluctance, as a matter of exquisitely painful delicacy. Sir, she has told me all that passed between you." "I cannot presume, Mr. Aubrey, to find fault with anything Miss Aubrey may have thought proper to do; she _cannot_ do wrong," replied Gammon, calmly, though Mr. Aubrey's last words had occasioned him lively anxiety as to the extent of Miss Aubrey's communications to her brother. He observed Mr. Aubrey's eyes fixed upon him steadfastly, and saw that he was laboring under much excitement. "If I have done anything calculated to inflict the slightest pain upon a lady for whom I have so profound"--he saw the color mounting into Mr. Aubrey's cheek, and a sterner expression appearing in his eye--"a respect, or upon _you_, or any of your family, I am distressed beyond measure." "I perfectly appreciate, Mr. Gammon, the position in which we stand with regard to each other," said Mr. Aubrey, with forced calmness. "Though I am fearfully changed in respect of fortune, I am not a whit changed--_we are none of us changed_," he continued proudly, "in respect of personal feelings and character." He paused: Gammon spoke not. Presently Mr. Aubrey resumed--"I am, as we are all, very deeply sensible of the obligation which you have conferred upon us, and at the same time feel, that we are, to a great extent, placed at your mercy." "Pray--I beg, Mr. Aubrey, that you will not speak in a strain which really hurts my feelings," interrupted Gammon, earnestly; "and which nothing on, my part has justified, nor can justify." "Sir," continued Mr. Aubrey, firmly, "I meant nothing in the least calculated to wound your feelings, but merely to express my own; and let me, Mr. Gammon, without the least reserve or circumlocution, inform you that both my sister and I have felt vivid dissatisfaction at your conduct of yesterday; and I have deemed it expedient to lose no time in informing you that your proposals are utterly out of the question, and can never be entertained, under any circumstances, for one moment." Had Aubrey been, instead of the mere pauper he really was, and in the presence of one whom he knew to be able to cast him instantly into prison, at that moment in the position he had formerly occupied, of wealth and greatness, he could not have spoken with an air of more dignified determination, and even _hauteur_: which Gammon perceived, and fully appreciated. "I am undoubtedly aware, sir, of the disparity between Miss Aubrey and myself in point of position," said he, coldly.