cried, with strangled, choking dignity, "do
you know who I am and who you are?"

The young man quaked visibly at her
awful voice, but the stolid resolution of his
visage did not relax a muscle. He was to
the full as obstinate as his mother, and when
they clashed on a subject, when each was
equally determined, then began the tug of war.

"Yes, mother; I am heir of Hardington,
lord of the manor of Hardington," said he,
in that formula which had been dinned into
his ears so long. It made his mother
laugh; for, at this moment, it sounded
ridiculous enough.

"Deplume you of those distinctions, sir,
and do you know what you are then?" said
she, bitterly.

"My father says I am fool," replied
Francis George; " other people are of a like
opinion——"

"Not such a fool as they take you to be,"
said his mother. "You have as much sense as
nine men in ten if you will use it, and you
must use it now in overcoming your absurd
aversion to your cousin Flora. I say you
shall marry her— and soon, too!"

"And I say I will not! I am almost of
age, and I shall be my own master in that
matter at least."

The young man spoke quietly but firmly.
His mother, looking up at his face, felt the
reins of authority slipping from her
grasp. Her weak, awkward, foolish boy
was, as it were, become a man by magic.
There he stood before her, six feet two;
lean but sinewy, a face far from vacuous;
expressive, indeed, of a brute courage and
obstinacy which, being provoked, would
never slumber again. But for his foolish
training, he would have been a fine young
man; as it was, he had not active mind
enough to inform that mass of matter. The
old habit of love and fear of his mother was
strong upon him yet; she saw it, and hoped
to triumph still.

"You ought to be glad that Flora will
have you," she said, "and you ought to have
a pleasure in re-uniting our dissevered
property. If you do not marry Flora, you may
be your own master, but you shall not be
master of anything else while I live, and
when I die you shall have nothing but the
bare estate; that I promise you."

"I don't care for Hardington. I don't see
any good it has ever done either you or my
father or me. I think it is a miserable
place," replied Francis George, in perfect
good faith.

His mother's eyes fixed him as if she
thought him a maniac in a dangerous
mood.

"Will you be pleased to explain yourself;
if you are not raving; which I sadly suspect,"
said she fiercely.

"Why, mother, what good has it done us
or anybody?" persisted the heir. "My
father is always away in London, and hates
it. You sit at work all day as hard as if
you worked for bread, and nobody comes
near you; and, because of it, you would make
me marry a girl I don't love. Then there's
the village. Such dirty old houses and
people, and no schools. If we were paupers
instead of people of ten thousand a-year, we
could not have a greater heap of misery
outside the gates than we have. What is the
good of the Hardington money if we don't
spend it? I say again, I don't care for
Hardington. Mr. Proby's sons are better off
than I am; because they have been well
brought up and they have got professions.
When I am amongst fellows of my age I feel
like a fool, and I am a fool."

"That is a fact beyond doubt," replied his
mother, drily. "But don't waste any more
breath over decrying Hardington—you shall
leave it—you shall have a profession. Yes!
Yes! You shall be an idle gentleman no
longer!"

There was a disagreeable tone in this
threat which made Francis George turn hot
and cold all over. It was a rather critical
act of his, this sudden snapping of the leading-
strings in which he had walked so long and
humbly. He felt vexed, too, in a stupid sort
of way, at having vexed his mother, and was
just on the point of making some concession
when Flora came into the room—Flora in a
gay muslin dress and most coquettish hat; a
maiden to attract a man's fancy, most people
would have thought, but, as it seemed, not
the star that could attract his.

"Flora, our young gentleman takes umbrage
at the gifts of fortune, and despises them—
heroic, is he not?" said Mrs. Percival Monke.

Flora glanced from one to the other with a
puzzled air, and asked what was the matter.
Francis George went out and left his mother
to explain as little or as much as she thought
desirable. The consequence of her explanation
was, that the Hardington Monkes and the
Frogholmes Monkes separated coldly the next
day, and Flora went to prosecute her first
campaign in town. Francis George did not
care where she went, so long as he was no
more troubled with her airs and graces.

V.

THE lawyer who managed the business
affairs of the Monkes was Mr. Leatherhead;
a dry, clever, craft-ingrained old fellow,
who greatly admired the elder of the co-
heiresses' style of saving and managing her
property. He said she had a brain as acute
and as hard as most men, and it was a pity
her son was so little like her. He thought
he knew her pretty well, but even he, for a
man of varied experience, was extremely
astonished when he received from her the
following letter:

Hardington, June 7th, 182-.

SIR—I am sure you will lend me your valuable
assistance in a project for my son which I have much