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 willingly yield to you, provided the dear children might marry, and go home with me to Allanwater, a place as pretty, and far more peaceful than any in these parts: there, I warrant, they would live happy, and die innocent—which is more than most folks can say in these great palaces and splendid castles.

A smile of contempt was the only answer Lady Margaret deigned to give.—Sir Richard continued, "you are all a mighty fine set of people, no doubt, and your assemblies, and your balls are thronged and admired; but none of these things will make the dear child happy, if her mind is set upon my nephew; I am the last in the world to disparage any one; but my nephew is just as proper a man in every point of view as your son; aye, or any body's son in the whole world; and so there is my mind given free and hearty; for there is not a nobler fellow, and there never can be, than Henry Avondale:—he is as brave a sol