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40 Eleanor's fortune. He would have married her without a penny, if Burley had not insisted on making over positively the fifty thousand pounds he intended as his daughter's portion. Riding slowly through Aske's lands, Burley got a view of his son-in-law's side of the quarrel; and he was more just to him than he had been in Burley House and in Burley Mills. He even began to suspect that Eleanor might have been trying. He remembered certain times in his own experience when she had been beyond everything so, and he made up his mind to give no encouragement to her unreasonable demands, for he was quite sure now they were in the main unreasonable.

But when a man reckons up a woman in her absence, his decisions are very apt to amount to nothing when brought face to face with her. Just as soon as Burley met his daughter she trained her influence over him. She was sitting in her own parlor, a dainty room full of all sorts of pretty luxuries, and sweet with stands of exquisite flowers. Never had she seemed so radiantly beautiful in his eyes. Her flowing robe of soft scarlet merino gave a wonderful brilliancy to the snow and rose of her