“There!” said Amy, laughing. “I will call you love no more--what a mistake I made to be sure; now, pray go away, you will spoil my work. Sit down, and let us talk.” Lord Verner complied at, once, and sat down close beside her. “I ought not to be wasting time upon this,” said Amy; “but I really could not resist finishing it this morning. Let me see, what were we talking about. Oh, my brother. Well, as I observed, he is really making quite a position as a financier--quite. What a pity it is, he did not begin to reform before Mr. Tallant died.” “That is a matter of opinion, my dear--ha, ha, ha!” said Lord Verner, laughing and chuckling quite merrily; “he would have had all the money then, perhaps--ha, ha!” Amy turned round and looked his lordship full in the face, and saw at once that this was said in jest. “Don’t you see, my love, you would have had no great fortune to give your husband--eh? don’t you see! How it might have influenced events--eh? Ha, ha!” Lord Verner went red in the face at the bare idea of anything influencing his choice of Amy for a wife. “And then you would not have proposed for me?” said Amy, smiling. “No, no--capital idea, is it not?--splendid idea--ha, ha!” “Then you only care about my money?” said Amy, with affected seriousness. “That is all, dear, that is all. I am poor myself, very poor; I wanted money--ha, ha!--capital joke!” “I think it is more than a joke, my lord,” said Amy, quite seriously. “No, now, you do not,” said his lordship, rising and taking her hand quite gravely; “I am sure you do not.” Now it was Amy’s turn to laugh, and she did so right merrily, shaking her finger archly at her lord and saying, “There, that is one to me, as you say. Of course I was joking; but now, really, let us talk seriously.” “Well, then, my dearest girl,” said his lordship, “if you had been no more than that bailiff’s daughter, if you had been that beggar maid you talk of in the poem, I would have asked you to marry me all the same, and felt blessed with your consent. You know I would,” said his lordship, with passionate earnestness. “My dear lord,” said Amy, with more warmth than she had ever spoken before. “What care I for money,” said his lordship, “except for the luxuries it can purchase?--and nothing it could purchase would make me so happy as I am with you.” Amy held down her head and blushed, not for the love she bore him, but because in that earnest moment she saw a likeness to his brother, and she was grateful for his affection, and remembered how she had sought to inspire the same feeling in another. “We were talking of my brother,” she said presently, laying down her brushes. “What a pity it is that we are not friendly; it seems so lonely to think that I have no male relative who should stand by my side at our marriage.”