'Then fight! Fight!' she answered, with surprising emotion: and she rose again to her feet. And again sat down. 'Fight them to the last, Sir George!' she cried breathlessly. 'Let the creatures have nothing! Not a penny! Not an acre!' 'But--if it is a righteous claim?' he said, amazed at her excitement. 'Righteous?' she answered passionately. 'How can a claim be righteous that takes all that a man has?' He nodded, and studied the road awhile, thinking less of her advice than of the strange fervour with which she had given it. At the end of a minute he was surprised to hear her laugh. He felt hurt, and looked up to learn the reason; and was astounded to find her smiling at him as lightly and gaily as if nothing had occurred to interrupt her most whimsical mood; as if the question he had put to her had not been put, or were a farce, a jest, a mere pastime! 'Sho, Sir George,' she said, 'how silly you must think me to proffer you advice; and with an air as if the sky were falling? Do you forgive me?' 'I forgive you _that_,' Sir George answered. But, poor fellow, he winced under her sudden change of tone. 'That is well,' she said confidently. 'And there again, do you know you are changed; you would not have said that a week ago. I have most certainly improved your manners.' Sir George made an effort to answer her in the same strain. 'Well, I should improve,' he said. 'I come very regularly to school. Do you know how many days we have sat here, _ma belle_?' A faint colour tinged her cheek. 'If I do not, that dreadful Mr. Thomasson does,' she answered. 'I believe he never lets me go out of his sight. And for what you say about days--what are days, or even weeks, when it is a question of reforming a rake, Sir George? Who was it you named to me yesterday,' she continued archly, but with her eyes on the toe of her shoe which projected from her dress, 'who carried the gentleman into the country when he had lost I don't know how many thousand pounds? And kept him there out of harm's way?' 'It was Lady Carlisle,' Sir George answered drily; 'and the gentleman was her husband.' It was Julia's turn to draw figures in the dust of the roadway, which she did very industriously; and the two were silent for quite a long time, while some one's heart bumped as if it would choke her. At length--'He was not quite ruined, was he?' she said, with elaborate carelessness; her voice was a little thick--perhaps by reason of the bumping. 'Lord, no!' said Sir George. 'And I am, you see.' 'While I am not your wife!' she answered; and flashed her eyes on him in sudden petulance; and then, 'Well, perhaps if my lady had her choice--to be wife to a rake can be no bed of roses, Sir George! While to be wife to a ruined rake--perhaps to be wife to a man who, if he were not ruined, would treat you as the dirt beneath his feet, beneath his notice, beneath--'