"Ah! you dogs, you!" Raeburn would say, with well-affected jocularity, to his friends of the description already mentioned, when showing them Fanny's portrait, "isn't that a pretty girl, now? and am not I a lucky fellow to have secured the affections of so charming a woman? What would you give, you rogues, you, for such a creature as that for a wife?" Then, holding the portrait aloft, "Come, say now, gentlemen, what would you give for her, suppose I was willing to part with her; which, perhaps, I am, if I could get a fair price for my right. Bid for her, gentlemen, bid for her!" he would say, laughingly, and _affecting_ to make a joke of the matter. "I will put her up to sale, and warrant the stock to be equal to the sample!" "A thousand rupees!" "Thank you, John. Very well for a beginning! Get on, gentlemen, get on." "Two thousand! three thousand!" "That's it. Go it, my spirited lads, go it; but she's worth six times the money yet." "Eight thousand! ten thousand!" "Ay, now you get on bravely, and are approaching the mark, though still at a great distance from it." "Fifteen thousand! twenty thousand!" "Very well--twenty thousand! Twenty thousand, gentlemen! Will no one bid more! Why, Tom, I thought you were a better judge of female beauty than to allow such a bargain as this to slip through your fingers!" "Twenty-five thousand!" "Well done, Tom; I knew you were a lad of spirit, and had too much of the knight-errant in you to allow a fair lady like this to be knocked down below her value. Twenty-five thousand rupees--once, twice, thrice! There, down she goes--she's yours, Tom; pay me the money, and I'll order her out for you by the first ship." This was a scene of frequent occurrence in Raeburn's house, when a number of young fellows had got together there, and something very like it was repeated to each of them individually when they chanced to call alone; particularly in the case of one of them--a Mr Cressingham, the son of a gentleman who held one of the highest civil situations in India, and who was enormously wealthy. This was Raeburn's friend, Tom, as he familiarly called him; and to him he was especially eloquent and importunate on the subject of Fanny's beauty. "Well, hang me if she an't a devilish pretty creature that, after all!" said Tom Cressingham to Raeburn, as they one day sat alone smoking their hookahs in the apartment in which Fanny's portrait hung, and on which he was listlessly gazing. "That she is, Tom," replied Raeburn; "wouldn't you fancy such a girl as that, now, for a wife, Tom?" "Faith and I would, Harry; I'd give ten thousand rupees for such a wife." "You're coming down in your price, Tom," replied Raeburn; "you offered twenty-five thousand for her the other night." "Well, I don't know but I would give that sum for her, after all, Harry; for she's certainly a delightful-looking creature. But why don't you bring out the girl, and marry her at once yourself, Harry?"