except my mother: that I do! You're so
good!"

Katie ran away laughing, with her hands
over her ears: the more he called to her to
stop, the more she would not.

"Katie, if you won't have it, I'll throw it
into the mill-dyke!" he cried, at last; and
as she still paid no heed, he turned round
towards home, and was as good or as
bad as his word.

For more than a week after this rebuff he
did not appear at Grenside at all. He was
apparently offended by Katie's very proper
refusal of his gift. She had told her mother
the whole story—the threat about the mill-
dyke included—but neither believed he would
be so wild as to put it in execution; so that,
when one of the Proby boys came home
exultant, with the morocco case in his hand,
proclaiming that he had found it amongst
the long reeds on the bank, they were
unfeignedly surprised. They had not given
Francis George credit for so much spirit, and
both of them liked him the better for this
foolish extravagant flight. Katie, by her
father's orders, even wrote him a kind little
letter, when the watch was sent back to him.

The next day he came to see them again,
making no allusion either to the watch or to
his long absence, and then regularly resumed
his calls with active constancy. The Probys,
one and all, were very kind to him—but
O! what foolish speeches he used to make
about his property, his dignity, and himself!
How he did bore poor Katie and her mother
over their work-table, when he tangled every
reel, and disordered every box and basket
that came within his reach. He had a stupid
tutor at home, who taught him a little Latin
and Greek; but left him as ignorant of
common-place useful knowledge as a Fejee
islander. If you had asked him where
America was, whether it was land or water
or cream-cheese, he could not have told you.

He had a complacent, good-humoured self-
conceit, that cushioned him softly against
contempt and pity. Glorified as he was at
home, how could he suspect that he was
laughed at abroad—that even Katie Proby
laughed at him, though she pitied him, and
rather liked his stupid kindliness of temper?

It was an awful shock to the heir of
Hardington when, a long time after, he offered
his hand, his heart, and his futurity to the
poor curate's daughter, and was refused.
He was in real, hard earnest, poor long-
limbed, feeble-minded fellow; and when
Katie blushed rather angrily, and said "No,"
in a curt, unmistakable tone, the tears fairly
came into his eyes.

"I thought you liked me, Katie, haven't
I been coming here for years? You don't
know, I can't tell you how fond I am of you!
I'd do anything for you, Katie, that I would!
My mother knows I would," spluttered he,
with frightful energy.

"I'm so sorry, Francis George, I am so
very sorry," replied Katie, a little frightened
and subdued.

"It is of no use to be sorry; if you don't
like me, you can't help it, and I don't care
what becomes of me if you don't. But it is
too bad. I could not have believed it!"
This anti-climax to his emotion almost made
Katie smile; but, checking the impulse, she
pretended to hear her mother calling to her,
and left her discomfited suitor alone.

Francis George Percival Monke was only
nineteen when he thus exhibited himself, and
had never left his mother's apron-strings for
a single day.

IV.

MR. and Mrs. Cholmondeley Monke
continued to reside abroad, in more or less
discomfort, until their daughter was of an age
to be introduced into society, and then
they brought her home to England, and, at
her aunt's invitation, to Hardington. The
two sisters had made a compact for the
re-union of their family property by marrying
their children; and each was formally told
of this compact before they met. Francis
George received the announcement in solemn
silence, and Flora received it with an
expressive giggle and a hope that her cousin
was handsome and lively, and not mopish,
like so many of the English gentlemen she
had seen abroad.

Flora Monke had no hereditary right to
be pretty, but she was pretty— even beautiful;
and her foreign manners and graces had the
air of making her still prettier than she was.
Her aunt received her with surly approbation,
and Francis George with a stolid composure
which did not promise any keen susceptibility
to her charms. She was piqued, and told
her mother he was an idiot.

If Flora expected to be courted, and
flattered, and worshipped by her cousin, she
must have been disappointed, for he kept as
much out of her way as ever he could, and
never said a civil thing to her; a peculiarity
for which his mother took him to task one
morning when they were alone. She still
treated her son as authoritatively as when
he was a boy in tunics.

"Francis George, you are a dull wooer,"
she said, with slow sarcasm, "Flora cannot
be very proud of you."

"I don't like Flora," replied Francis
George, gravely.

"But you must learn to like her, since she
is to be your wife——"

"Mother, if Flora Monke was the only
woman left in the world, I would not marry
her. I don't like her."

Mrs. Percival Monke grew red all over
her dull grey face. This was the first word
of rebellion and contradiction she had ever
heard from her son since he was born; and, if
he had struck her she could not have looked
more indignant or surprised.

"Francis George Percival Monke!" she