been busy with, while entertaining you? Don't
be disturbed; but I thought it right to let
you know——"

"What?" I said, in much trouble.

"Why buying up your incumbrances—
exchanging places with your creditors. I know
he has a hankering after your acres. A
rare plot, and worthy of a gutter-blood!"

I was astounded. "Are you sure? " I said.
"Can this be true?"

"Stay!" continued my lord, "he has
a daughter, has he not?—a fair seducing
thing—placed well in the centre of his
spider's web. A better plot still. Don't
you see it all now, my poor friend? Turn
of the mortgage screw with one hand;
with the other, seducing daughter. Take your
choice. That's the game!"

That was the game! So it was, and blind
I must have been, not to have seen it long
since. Here was the secret of that interest
in my affairs—that rummage among the tin
boxes and papers, which I had so foolishly
privileged. Here was the fruit of that laying
heads together of the two brothers, and of
that cunning embassy of the Hooknose, and of
his quiet suggestion for admixture of plebeian
blood. A low juggle, indeed, and most clumsy
plot!

For my lord threw out the broadest hint,
for the confounding of it.

"You and I," he said, again, "being the
only true blood in the county, should stand
to one another. If he shake his deed in your
face, don't be afraid of him; there is one who
will back you. This tender wench has not
been angling for you: you have not been
committing yourself! Gracious! Don't tell
me that!"

I was turning crimson, and I thought I saw
a look of repulsion in my lord's face.

IX.

THIS was what I said to the mushroom
Baronet in the plainest terms (he and his
long-headed brother were together in the
study):

"Sir, you have behaved unworthily—
unworthy of your station and the title you bear.
But your scheme has failed. Do your worst.
Ruin me if you please: but not all your
power will bring me to degrade my name
and blood, by such an alliance."

His pale cheek was suffused with colour,
and his fingers trembled. Hooknose was
smiling.

"Your ambassador," I went on quite in a
fury, " did his work well this morning, striving
skilfully to depreciate this poor faith of
mine in noble blood, now the only estate left
to me. But thank Heaven it has failed!"
And here, in the excess of my excitement, I
clasped my hands together. Hooknose smiled
again.

The baronet's cheek grew paler. He
was unprepared, he said huskily, for this,
quite unprepared. But he understood it.
It was not worth while setting himself right;
for, though of humble birth, he had his dignity
as a man to look to. He had been misjudged,
but would leave all to time.

With that he rose and gathered together
his papers. My heart smote me cruelly: it
was scarcely patrician to have spoken so to
him.

"Give Mr. Sundon," he said to his brother,
"those papers." Then turning to me, he said
again: "Sir, I leave all to time. You will
see your injustice one day."  With that he
passed away from the room.

"I hand you the mortgage deeds," Hooknose
said, "pursuant to instructions."

"I know the price wanted for them," I
answered scornfully, and left the house.

X.

So had I thus cut away, all that bound
me to the baronet—cut away, too, what had
bound me to his golden-haired daughter. I
had passed from them with aristocracy
colours streaming! Proud blue blood was
triumphant. It had vindicated itself grandly.
The plebeian dragon was grovelling in the
dust. Yet my breast had a heavy weight
on it all the while, from early morning until
sundown: heaviest, too, on waking at
midnight with weary vision of golden-hair and
of the pale plebeian's face and trembling
fingers—with lurking suspicion, too, that my
nobility had asserted itself in something too
rough and unmanly a fashion.

When I was at home the week following,
busily arranging matters, news was brought in
that my Lord Willoughby was coming up the
avenue. That purest of Corinthian blood was
coming to pay me a visit. Nay, for that matter,
aforesaid blood had come the day before, and
the day before that again, being seemingly very
anxious to have speech of me. Such eagerness
was unaccountable to me. My lord
desired to know more of me; as it was only
fitting that two such noble stocks should be
brought much together. His lordship was a
person of awful consideration and extreme
nicety in "mixing," as it was called.

My lord was rejoiced to see me, wringing
me very cordially by the hand. He must see
more of me in future. By the way, he had
something to tell me. And my lord took out
a letter.

"I got this," said my lord, "three days ago
from a noble relation in the Upper House.
He tells me that your Barony is almost
secure; but a little trouble and a word or
two from persons of interest—"

My breath came and went. "You
mean?——" I asked, trembling.

"I mean," said my lord, jocularly, "that
the thing only wants a little pushing. Come
to-morrow and dine, and we can talk it
over. By the way, you have not seen my
daughter, Constance, since she came home?"

The Barony within grasp! Was it credible?
What did it mean? How laughable the