"Will, take my advice, and don't make any romantic promises when you are down at Belton. You'll be sure to regret them if you do. And you should remember that in truth Miss Amedroz has no greater claim on you than any other lady in the land." "Isn't she my cousin?" "Well;--yes. She is your cousin, but a distant one only; and I'm not aware that cousinship gives any claim." "Who is she to have a claim on? I'm the nearest she has got. Besides, am not I going to take all the property which ought to be hers?" "That's just it. There's no such ought in the case. The property is as much your own as this poker is mine. That's exactly the mistake I want you to guard against. If you liked her, and chose to marry her, that would be all very well; presuming that you don't want to get money in marriage." "I hate the idea of marrying for money." "All right. Then marry Miss Amedroz if you please. But don't make any rash undertakings to be her father, or her brother, or her uncle, or her aunt. Such romance always leads a man into trouble." "But I've done it already." "What do you mean?" "I've told her that I would be her brother, and that as long as I had a shilling she should never want sixpence. And I mean it. And as for what you say about romance and repenting it, that simply comes from your being a lawyer." "Thank ye, Will." "If one goes to a chemist, of course one gets physic, and has to put up with the bad smells." "Thank you again." "But the chemist may be a very good sort of fellow at home all the same, and have a cupboard full of sweetmeats and a garden full of flowers. However, the thing is done as far as I am concerned, and I can almost find it in my heart to be sorry that Clara has got this driblet of money. Fifteen hundred pounds! It would keep her out of the workhouse, and that is about all." "If you knew how many ladies in her position would think that the heavens had rained wealth upon them if some one would give them fifteen hundred pounds!" "Very well. At any rate I won't take it away from her. And now I want you to tell me something else. Do you remember a fellow we used to know named Berdmore?" "Philip Berdmore?" "He may have been Philip, or Daniel, or Jeremiah, for anything I know. But the man I mean was very much given to taking his liquor freely." "That was Jack Berdmore, Philip's brother. Oh yes, I remember him. He's dead now. He drank himself to death at last, out in India." "He was in the army?" "Yes;--and what a pleasant fellow he was at times! I see Phil constantly, and Phil's wife, but they never speak of Jack." "He got married, didn't he, after we used to see him?" "Oh yes;--he and Phil married sisters. It was a sad affair, that." "I remember being with him and her,--and the sister too, after they were engaged, and he got so drunk that we were obliged to take him away. There was a large party of us at Richmond, but I don't think you were there." "But I heard of it." "And she was a Miss Vigo?"