Frank bit his nails for a few moments as if deep in thought; then looking up, he said: "Mother, this thing is not a suggestion of your own. I can pretty well guess the quarter from whence it emanates." "And what then? Is not your welfare at the bottom of the scheme? People at the head of a prosperous concern don't usually choose a virtual beggar for their partner; but no one could call a man with twenty thousand pounds at his back by any such title!" So that was how the wind lay! Frank felt that the golden shackles were being riveted upon him one by one. He had thrown over--like the mean cur he knew himself to be--the only girl he could ever really love, and now he was called on to sell his freedom. CHAPTER XXX. THE DOWNWARD PATH. A PROPOSAL. Frank Derison looked forward to the arrival of his cousin with much disfavor. Under any circumstances it would have seemed to him bad enough that his future should be cut-and-dried for him as if he were still a child in leading-strings, and that a bride should be thrust on him without as much as a "by your leave," but, as the case stood, it was rendered still more obnoxious by the fact that Fate had chosen for him a wife for whom he could never feel even that tepid amount of affection which seems to be found an amply sufficient capital in the majority of matrimonial ventures. As a cousin Miss Dixon might be everything one could wish, but as a wife he felt that before long he should positively hate her. Frank's affections, fleeting and shallow as they were, could only be captured by youth and good looks, and unfortunately Miss Dixon could boast of neither. When he compared her in his thoughts with sweet Hermia Rivers, and called to mind all that he had flung away, his heart grew very bitter within him, and he often felt that he would gladly cast behind him all his chances of worldly advancement if, by so doing, he could bring back those pleasant evenings of six months ago when he was a welcome visitant at Nairn Cottage, and when Hermia ever greeted his coming with a smile, the like of which for him the world did not hold. Oh, fool--fool that he had been!