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62 he asks you—eh? With your fortune, you mustn't be throwing yourself away. Still, he's a fine-looking fellow, and thought a deal of. And there's his future title. He'll be Sir Rupert when his uncle dies. That's something, I suppose. You might do worse."

"To marry a man because he will some day have a title, and is six foot two, uncle, would not be wise," said Elizabeth, with a smile; "but I like Colonel Wybrowe—yes, I confess I like him better than any one I have ever seen. I don't know why. He is not very clever, and I am afraid he is not very good; but he is very brave, and very handsome; and though it is foolish, I suppose, to care about looks, I do care. I confess he attracts me, but I can't believe that he cares the least about me. If I did—if I could feel sure that this was not a passing fancy, perhaps—I think—yes, I—I think I would marry him."

"Well, Bessie," returned her uncle, staring with a puzzled look into vacancy, "as to not being good, young men will be young men. They're all of 'em much alike. You won't get a saint, my dear, not if you waited till—till you were fifty. I dare say he is no worse than the rest of 'em, and 'll settle down all right by-and-by. He has run through most of his fortune, I believe; but you'll have enough for both—and Twisden 'd see that it was strictly tied up—settled on yourself. He couldn't make ducks and drakes of the principal."

A little later in the same day Mrs. Shaw found occasion to say to her niece—

"He is in despair. He says he is afraid you don't care for him, and talks of emigrating. He won't marry this Miss Krupp, the American heiress with half a million,