"Then what the d---- is it?" "Sir Lionel, sir, has made me--" "Made you what? Put your name to a bill, I suppose." "No; indeed he has not. Nothing of that kind." "Then what has he made you do?" "He has not made me do anything; but he has sent me--an--an offer of marriage." And poor Miss Baker, with her blue nose, looked up so innocently, so imploringly, so trustingly, that any one but Mr. Bertram would have comforted her. "An offer of marriage from Sir Lionel!" said he. "Yes," said Miss Baker, timidly. "Here it is; and I have come up to consult you about the answer." Mr. Bertram now did take the letter, and did read it through. "Well!" he said, closing his eyes and shaking his head gently. "Well!" "I thought it better to do nothing without seeing you. And that is what has brought me to Hadley in such a hurry." "The audacious, impudent scoundrel!" "You think, then, that I should refuse him?" "You are a fool, an ass! a downright old soft-headed fool!" Such was the old gentleman's answer to her question. "But I didn't know what to say without consulting you," said Miss Baker, with her handkerchief to her face. "Not know! Don't you know that he's a swindler, a reprobate, a penniless adventurer? Good heavens! And you are such a fool as that! It's well that you are not to be left at Littlebath by yourself." Miss Baker made no attempt to defend herself, but, bursting into tears, assured her uncle that she would be guided by him. Under his absolute dictation she wrote the enclosed short answer to Sir Lionel. Hadley, January --, 184--. Dear Sir, Mr. Bertram says that it will be sufficient to let you know that he would not give me a penny during his life, or leave me a penny at his death if I were to become your wife. Yours truly, MARY BAKER. That was all that the old gentleman would allow; but as she folded the letter, she surreptitiously added the slightest imaginable postscript to explain the matter--such words as occurred to her at the spur of the moment. "He is so angry about it all!" After that Miss Baker was not allowed back to Littlebath, even to pack up or pay her bills, or say good-bye to those she left behind. The servant had to do it all. Reflecting on the danger which had been surmounted, Mr. Bertram determined that she should not again be put in the way of temptation. And this was the end of Sir Lionel's wooing. CHAPTER III. A QUIET LITTLE DINNER. Sir Henry Harcourt was married and took his bride to Paris and Nice; and Sir Lionel Bertram tried to get married, but his bride--bride as he hoped her to have been--ran away by herself to Hadley. In the meantime George Bertram lived alone in his dark dull chambers in London.