"She has not. I have not approached her on the subject, but I thought that you, as a woman, might sound her. Yet, I am not without my reasons for believing that my suit would be accepted--though not immediately. Fox Crymes has given me reason to hope." "Fox!--But what----" "If you will have patience, Magdalen, and will allow me to conclude what I was saying, your mind will be more enlightened, and you will cease to express so unbecoming, such indecorous, so gross incredulity. You forget my position and my wealth. I am not, indeed, a Member of Parliament, as is my friend Crymes, but I might have been had my views been more favourable to the Catholic party. I have seen a good deal of Master Anthony Crymes, my godson, of late; he has been to Hall several times in the week, and then I threw out--in an uncertain way, and as if in sport--the notion that, as Anthony had proved false, and had disappointed Julian of her ambition to have the two estates united, that I would consider about it, and might persuade myself to accommodate her views by stepping into the position thrown up by my son." "And what did he say?" "He did not open his mouth and eyes into a stare unbecoming to the face, and impertinent to me. He accepted the proposition cordially. He saw nothing strange, preposterous, ridiculous in it. I should like to see," said the squire, working himself up into a white heat, "I should like to see anyone, you, sister Magdalen, excepted, who would dare to find anything strange, preposterous, ridiculous in me, or in any proposition that I make." "I tender ten thousand excuses," said Magdalen, humbly. "But, brother, you entirely misunderstand me. If I gaped--" "You did gape." "I know I gaped and stared. I admit I opened my eyes wide, it was with astonishment at your genius, at the clever and unexpected way in which you overcame a great difficulty, and rallied after a great disappointment." "Oh! It was that, was it?" asked the Squire, relaxing some of his severity and cooling. "On my word as a gentlewoman. I never employed those words you attribute to me. Indeed I did not. The only expletives becoming are of a very different quality. So Fox agreed to the proposal?" "Most heartily and warmly." "But, brother, I misdoubt me if Fox has much influence with his sister. They are ever spitting and clawing at each other, and it hath appeared to me--and yet I may be wrong--that whatsoever the one suggests the other rejects; they make a point of conscience of differing from each other." "All that," said the squire, "all that have I foreseen, and I have provided against it. The proposal shall not be covertly favoured by Fox. He shall, indeed, appear to set his face against it, but we shall make Bessie our means of breaking the ice, and drawing us together. I have some notion of letting Fox become Bessie's suitor--now, when he is accepted, and has----" "But--brother!"