"To Ella?" asked Jenny, and Henry replied scornfully, "No, ma'am! my wife must have a soul, a heart, and a mind, to make up for my deficiency on those points. To be plain, how would you like to have me marry Mary Howard?" "Not at all--Not at all," was Jenny's quick reply, while her brother said angrily, "And why not? Are you, too, proud as Lucifer, like the rest of us? I could tell you something, Miss, that would bring your pride down a peg or two. But answer me, why are you unwilling for me to marry Mary?" Jenny's spirit was roused too, and looking her brother fully in his face, she unhesitatingly replied, "You are not worthy of her; neither would she have you." "And this from my own sister?" said Henry, hardly able to control his wrath. "Leave the room, instantly,--But stay," he added, "and let me hear the reasons for what you have asserted." "You know as well as I," answered Jenny, "that one as pure and gentle as Mary Howard, should never be associated with you, who would trample upon a woman's better nature and feelings, for the sake of gratifying your own wishes. Whenever it suits your purpose, you flatter and caress Ella Campbell, to whom your slightest wish is a law, and then when your mood changes, you treat her with neglect; and think you, that knowing all this, Mary Howard would look favorably upon you, even if there were no stronger reason why she should refuse you?" "If you mean the brandy bottle," said Henry, growing more and more excited, "have I not sworn to quit it, and is it for you to goad me on to madness, until I break that vow?" "Forgive me if I have been too harsh," said Jenny, taking Henry's hand. "You are my brother, and Mary my dearest friend, and when I say I would not see her wedded to you, 'tis not because I love you less, but her the more. You are wholly unlike, and would not be happy together. But oh, if her love would win you back to virtue, I would almost beg her, on my bended knees, not to turn away from you." "And I tell you her love _can_ win me back, when nothing else in the kingdom will," said Henry, snatching up the note and hurrying away. For a time after he left the room, Jenny sat in a kind of stupefied maze. That Mary would refuse her brother, she was certain, and she trembled for the effect that refusal would produce upon him. Other thoughts, too, crowded upon the young girl's mind, and made her tears flow fast. Henry had hinted of something which he could tell her if he would, and her heart too well foreboded what that something was. The heavy sound of her father's footsteps, which sometimes kept her awake the livelong night, his pale haggard face in the morning, and her mother's nervous, anxious manner, told her that ruin was hanging over them.