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of yours, though even then, you had obtained both her's and her father's consent, I told you plainly that never should such a daughter-inlaw cross my threshold. No-never, never,

never!"

"And I answered, that, as the Penningtons were people of the highest respectability in the county, and as the amiable disposition of my intended wife was a sufficient dowry for a man so unambitious as myself, I saw no grounds, sir, for breaking off the connection."

"Unambitious!" retorted his father; "you may truly say unambitious! To content yourself with the low circle of a petty squire, like Richard Pennington; little above the condition of a yeo

man !"

"I beg your pardon, sir. The Penningtons of Denny Cross have held their own in Northamptonshire quite as long as the Woolstons of Harrals. Unsecured by an entail, their estates have been morselled out; while ours remain intact. But this does not intitle us to look down upon

an independent man who has brought up a large family most creditably on a property of fifteen hundred a year; whose sons are rising in the world; and whose daughters"

What Sir Harry Woolston permitted himself to say of the daughters, it is unnecessary to repeat. Suffice it that his disparagement put the finishing aggravation to the wrath of his son; who now firmly announced his intention to make the vilified Maria his wife, without further delay. A small legacy lately bequeathed him by one of his mother's relations, would enable him to form an establishment suitable to their moderate pretensions. And again, he steadily repeated that his allowance would suffice their utmost wishes; and that Roger Farmer, the eminent Queen's counsel, of whom he had been a favourite pupil, had promised to push him forward in his profession.

Sir Harry, though his face was almost livid from the constraint he was exercising over one

of the worst of tempers, determined to make

a last effort to bring better convictions to the mind of his son. Till now, John Woolston had maintained in his family and neighbourhood the character of "an old head on young shoulders." His prudence, though dormant, might perhaps still be roused.

"To place the whole matter fairly before you, John," said the old man, lowering his voice to an almost confidential tone, “the fact is, that I have much to reproach myself with, concerning the state in which the Harrals property will fall into your hands. For years after my death, it will be impossible for you to reside here; unless an advantageous marriage should have supplied you, in the interim, with the means of putting the place into condition. The necessity of paying off your sisters' fortunes compelled me to neglect the necessary repairs not only of this house, which is in an all but tumble-down condition, but of my farms and out-buildings. Four years' income would be absorbed in the outlay indispensable to set all this in order."

But the old head was too old for such shallow arguments; and the shoulders were much too young to resist a shrug of impatience.

"Depend upon it, sir," pleaded Mr. Woolston in reply, "that if there were no Denny Cross in the world, and no Maria Pennington, nothing would induce me to marry for mercenary considerations. As to the terrible prospects you hold out, money for such purposes is easily obtained on mortgage; and to the consequent curtailment of our income, my wife and I will cheerfully submit.”

This intimation, and the word." wife," with which it was accompanied, raised the exasperation of the irate old gentleman to its climax.

"Then, by the Lord Almighty," cried he, after swallowing at a gulp the last half of his bumper of fiery port, "I trust the crazy old roof of this mansion will fall in and crush you both, as a judgment on your ingratitude and rebellion. And never do I wish to see your face again."

After which explosion of wrath, and a few expletives very short of decorous on the part of a county magistrate, he started from his chair, and rang the bell for coffee with a degree of violence that brought the venerable butler hobbling into the room, to add, by his rubicund face, another shade of crimson to its glow.

It was no small comfort to the old servant to find Mr. Woolston quietly wiping his mouth with his doiley ere he rose from table, instead of engaged in fisticuffs with the author of his days; as, from her ladyship's premature retreat, and the loud summons of the bell, he had half expected. But no sooner had Sir Harry, after ordering coffee in the drawing-room, made as precipitate an exit as his gout would admit, than Mr. Woolston desired that his baggage might be dispatched after him to the neighbouring town of Hurdiston; whither he was about to proceed on foot.

"I have unexpected business in town, Wardlaw, and must take my chance of a place in the

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