"That is just it. Women are so cross-grained that it is a wonder to me that men should ever have anything to do with them. They have about them some madness of a phantasy which they dignify with the name of feminine pride, and under the cloak of this they believe themselves to be justified in tormenting their lovers' lives out. The only consolation is that they torment themselves as much. Can anything be more cross-grained than you are at this moment? You were resolved just now that it would be the most unbecoming thing in the world if he spoke a word more about his love for the next twelve months--" "Mrs. Askerton, I said nothing about twelve months." "And now you are broken-hearted because he did not blurt it all out before Colonel Askerton in a business interview, which was very properly had at once, and in which he has had the exceeding good taste to confine himself altogether to the one subject." "I am not complaining." "It was good taste; though if he had not been a bear he might have asked after me, who am fighting his battles for him night and day." "But what will he do next?" "Eat his dinner, I should think, as it is now nearly five o'clock. Your father used always to dine at five." "I can't go to see Mary," she said, "till he comes here again." "He will be here fast enough. I shouldn't wonder if he was to come here to-night." And he did come again that night. When Belton's interview was over in the Colonel's study, he left the house,--without even asking after the mistress, as that mistress had taken care to find out,--and went off, rambling about the estate which was now his own. It was a beautiful place, and he was not insensible to the gratification of being its owner. There is much in the glory of ownership,--of the ownership of land and houses, of beeves and woolly flocks, of wide fields and thick-growing woods, even when that ownership is of late date, when it conveys to the owner nothing but the realisation of a property on the soil; but there is much more in it when it contains the memories of old years; when the glory is the glory of race as well as the glory of power and property. There had been Beltons of Belton living there for many centuries, and now he was the Belton of the day, standing on his own ground,--the descendant and representative of the Beltons of old,--Belton of Belton without a flaw in his pedigree! He felt himself to be proud of his position,--prouder than he could have been of any other that might have been vouchsafed to him. And yet amidst it all he was somewhat ashamed of his pride. "The man who can do it for himself is the real man after all," he said. "But I have got it by a fluke,--and by such a sad chance too!" Then he wandered on, thinking of the circumstances under which the property had fallen into his hands, and remembering how and when and where the first idea had occurred to him of making Clara Amedroz his wife. He had then