"Pleased with the attentions and compliments she thought serious, and despising the delicacy requisite in her sex, she sent proposals to my father, offering to resign herself and fortune to my disposal. I was laughing at the effects of my evening's mirth, when my brother entered the room; my father gave him the letter, and, smiling, observed, he thought Miss Deborah had completed her character. "'I cannot so readily conceive the occasion of your immoderate laughter, Edward,' said my brother: 'the offer is advantageous, far beyond what you have a right to expect; and, instead of ridiculing, I think you rather ought to accept it with thankfulness.' "'Accept it with thankfulness!' I repeated. 'What, and chain myself to such an ugly old----'. "'As to her being old and ugly,' interrupted my brother, 'it is of very little consequence. You will recollect, sir, she has an ample fortune, and you have none!' "'Not so destitute as that, Arthur,' said my father: 'the fortune he is entitled to from your hands, though small, will render him so far independent that he may choose for himself.' "'Excuse me, sir,' answered my brother, 'I cannot say I think myself obliged to give Edward a fortune from my own purse, especially when one so large as that Miss Tangress possesses is offered. If he have any regard for his own interest, he will accept it, and not look to me for future supplies. I have nearer ties; my children----.' "But excuse me, Talton, here is one"--(looking at Frederick, who appeared surprised and shocked at this account of his father) "too nearly interested to be pleased with this part of my narrative. Suffice it to say,--the mask was here thrown off by my brother, and I condemned to poverty! For the promise given to my father was merely verbal, and without witness, whilst the possessions of my father, in full confidence of Arthur's honour, had been secured to him by the strongest ties of the law. "My father felt the stroke more severely than I did; he wept--and, in the bitterest anguish, asked pardon of heaven and me, for the step he had taken, and begged I would reconsider the proposal of Miss Tangress, before I absolutely rejected it. In all probability, he said, a few years would terminate her existence; I had no particular attachment to restrict me; and it would convey ease to his death-bed to know I was not only independent of my brother, but in a state of equal affluence. "In the passion of the moment, this last consideration determined me; I complied--and in less than three weeks became the husband of Miss Tangress.