"Oh," said Mrs. Dormer-Smith, shaking her head with the old plaintive air, "you need not entertain any doubts as to my brother's succession. He is the next heir. And the estates--at least the bulk of them--are entailed." "Good heavens!" cried Owen, in despair, "can you not understand that I care not one straw whether they are entailed or not? That I would proudly and joyfully make May my wife--she being what she is--if her father trundled a barrow through the streets?" Whether Mrs. Dormer-Smith could, or could not, understand this, at any rate she certainly did not believe it. She merely shook her head once more, and said softly-- "I think you ought to consider her prospects a little, Mr. Rivers. It appears to me that your views are entirely selfish." This seemed very hopeless. With a last effort to come to an understanding, Owen took refuge in a plain and categorical statement of facts. He had loved May when she was penniless. So far as he knew, she was so still. He hoped to be able to offer her a modest home. She had not been accustomed to luxury or show--the season in London having been a mere episode, and not the main part of her life. Absolute destitution they were quite secure from. He possessed one hundred and fifty pounds a year of his own. (Pauline gave a little shudder at this. It positively seemed to her worse than nothing at all. With nothing certain in the way of income, a boundless field was left open for possibilities. But a hundred and fifty pounds a year was a hard, hideous, circumscribing fact, like the bars of a cage!) He was receiving about as much again for his services as secretary. Moreover, he had tried his hand at literature, not unsuccessfully. He had earned a few pounds by his pen already, and hoped to earn more. That was the state of the case. If May, God bless her! were content with it, he submitted that no one else could fairly object. Mrs. Dormer-Smith rose from her chair, to signify that the interview was at an end. Indeed, what use could there be in prolonging it? "I confess," she said, "you have astonished me, Mr. Rivers. If May--an inexperienced young girl not yet nineteen--is content, you think no one else has a right to interfere! At that rate, if she chose to marry the footman, we must all stand by without raising a finger to prevent it. That is, certainly, very extraordinary doctrine." Owen drew himself up, and looked full at her with those blue eyes, which could shine so fiercely upon occasion as he answered--