Court Netherleigh. Mrs. Henry Wood

don't want the money: you are rich as Croesus, and you must wait. I wish my son had lived; we would have cut off the entail."

      "The debt must be liquidated," returned Mr. Grubb, after a pause of regret, given to poor Lord Denne. And he spoke so coldly and determinedly that Lord Acorn wheeled sharply round in his walk, and looked at him.

      "I don't know how the dickens it will be done, then. I suppose you won't proceed to harsh measures, and bring a hornets' nest about my head."

      They faced one another, and a silence ensued. For once in his careless life, the good-looking face of Lord Acorn was troubled.

      "There is one way in which your lordship can repay the debt," resumed Mr. Grubb. "And it will not cost you money."

      "Ah!" laughed the earl, "how's that? If you mean by post-obit bonds, I'll sign a cart-load, if you like."

      Mr. Grubb approached the earl in a sort of nervous agitation. "Give me your youngest daughter, Lord Acorn," he breathed. "Let me woo and win her! I will take her in lieu of all."

      His lordship was considerably startled; the proud Chenevix blood rose, and dyed his forehead crimson. He had not been listening particularly, and he doubted whether he heard aright. In one respect he had not, for he thought the words had been your eldest daughter. Against Francis Grubb personally, nothing could be said; but against his standing a great deal. Many years had gone by since Catherine Grant lost caste by marrying a "City man," but opinions had not changed, for it was yet long antecedent to these tolerant days. Men in trade, no matter how high the class of trade, were still kept at a distance by the upper orders—not looked upon as being of the same race.

      Therefore the demand was as a blow to Lord Acorn; and he dared not resent it as he would have liked to. His daughter descend from her own rank, and become one with this trader! Was the world coming to an end?

      But as the two men stood gazing at one another, neither of them speaking, the earl began to revolve in his mind the pros of the matter, as well as the cons. Lady Grace was no longer young; she was growing thin and rather cross, for she had been before the world ten years, with no result. Would it be so bad a match for her?

      "I will settle an ample income upon her," spoke Mr. Grubb. "And your unpaid bonds—there are many of them, my lord—I will return into your hands: all of them. Thus your debt to me will be cancelled, and, so far as I am concerned, you are a free man again."

      "I cannot be that. I am at my wits' end now for two thousand pounds."

      "You shall have that."

      "Egad, Grubb's a generous fellow!" cogitated the earl, "and it will be a famous thing for Grace: if she can only think so. Have you ever spoken to Grace of this," he asked, aloud.

      "To Lady Grace? No."

      "Do you think Grace likes you," continued Lord Acorn, remembering how attractive a man the merchant was. "Do you think she will accept you?"

      "I am not speaking of Lady Grace."

      "No!" repeated the earl, opening his eyes wider than usual. "Which of them is it, then?"

      "Lady Adela."

      If Lord Acorn had been startled when he thought the object of this proposal was Grace, he was considerably more startled now. Adela! young, beautiful, and haughty!—she would never have him. His first impulse was indignantly to reject the proposition; his second thought was, that he was trammelled and dared not do so.

      "I cannot force Adela's inclinations," he said, after an awkward pause.

      "Neither would I take a wife whose inclinations require to be forced," returned Mr. Grubb. "Pray understand that."

      "My lord," cried a servant, entering the library, "her ladyship wishes to know how much longer she is to wait dinner?"

      "Dinner!" exclaimed the earl. "By Jove! I did not know it was so late. Grubb, will you join us sans cérémonie?"

      It was not the first time, by many, Mr. Grubb had dined there. He followed the earl into the drawing-room. Lady Acorn was in it, a little woman, all fire and impatience; especially just now, for if one thing put her out more than another, it was that of being kept waiting for her meals. The five daughters were there: they need not be described. Grace, little and plain, but nevertheless with a nice face, and eight-and-twenty, was the oldest; Adela, whom you have already seen, twenty now, and a very flower of beauty, was the youngest. Four daughters were between them. Sarah, next to Grace, and one year younger, had married Major Hope, and was in India; Mary, Harriet, and Frances; Adela coming last. Not a whit less beautiful was she than when we saw her a year ago at Court Netherleigh.

      "Here's the grub again," whispered Harriet, for the girls were given to be flippant amongst themselves. Not that they disliked Mr. Grubb personally, or wished to cast derision on him, but they made a standing joke of his name. He was in trade—and all such people they had been taught to hold in contempt. The house, "Christopher Grubb and Son," was situated somewhere in the City, they believed: it did business with India, and the colonies, and ever so many more places; though what the precise business was the young ladies did not pretend to understand; but they did know that it was second to few houses in wealth, and that their father was a considerable debtor to it. While liking Mr. Grubb personally very well indeed, they yet held him to be of a totally different order from themselves.

      "Dinner at once," cried the countess, impatiently, to the butler. "Of course it's all cold," she sharply added, for the especial benefit of her husband.

      Mr. Grubb went to the upper end of the room after greeting the countess, and was speaking with the young ladies there; Lord Acorn bent over the back of his wife's chair, and began to whisper to her.

      "Betsy, here's the strangest thing! Grubb wants to marry one of the girls."

      "Absurd!" responded the wrathful little woman.

      "So it appears, at the first blush. But when we come to look at the advantages—now do listen reasonably for a moment," he broke off, "you are as much interested in this as I am. He will settle hundreds of thousands upon her, and cancel all my debts to him besides."

      "Did he say so?" quickly cried the countess, putting off her anger to a less interested moment.

      "He did," replied the earl, forgetting that he had improvised the hundreds of thousands. "And in addition to putting me straight, he will give me a handsome sum down. You shall have five hundred pounds of it for your milliner, Madame Damereau, which will enable you all to get a new rig-out," concluded the wily man, conscious that if his self-willed better-half set her temper against the match, the Archbishop of Canterbury himself could never tie it into one.

      "Which of them does he want?" inquired the countess, snappishly, as if wishing to intimate that, though she might have to say Yes, it should be done with an ill grace. "He's talking now with—which is it?—Mary."

      "I thought it was Grace," began the earl, in a deprecatory tone; "I took that for granted——"

      "Dinner, my lady," came the interruption, as the door was flung open: and the earl started up, and said not another word. He thought it well that his lady wife should digest the news so far, before proceeding further with it. The countess on her part, understood that all was told, and that the desired bride was Grace.

      Mr. Grubb gave his arm to Lady Acorn, and sat down at her right hand. Lady Grace was next him on the other side. He was an agreeable man, of easy manners. Could they ignore the City house, and had he boasted of ancestry and a high-sounding name, they could not have wished for a companion who was more thoroughly the gentleman. Unusually agreeable he was this evening, for he now believed that no bar would be thrown in the way of his winning the Lady Adela. He had long admired her above all women; he had long loved her, and he saw no reason why any bar should be thrown: what incompatibility ought to exist between the portionless daughter of a ruined peer and a British merchant of high character and standing and next to unlimited wealth? The ruined peer, however, had he heard this argument, might have said the merchant reasoned only in accordance with his merchant-origin;