“Your own

“Martha Ann Keswick.”

Colonel Macon, who, with much difficulty and redness of face, had restrained himself during the reading of this note, now burst into a shout of laughter, while Mr Brandon sprang to his feet, and crumpling the note in his hand, threw it into the fire; and then, turning around, he exclaimed:  “Did the world ever hear anything like that!  Triple wedding, indeed!  Does the pestiferous old shrew imagine that anything in this world would induce me to marry her?”

“Why, my dear sir,” cried Colonel Macon, “of course she don’t.  I know the Widow Keswick as well as you do.  She wouldn’t marry you to save your soul, sir.  All she wants to do is to worry and persecute you, and to torment your senses out of you, in revenge for your having got the better of her.  Now, take my advice, sir, and don’t let her do it.

“I’d like to know how I am going to hinder her,” said Mr Brandon.

“Hinder her!” exclaimed Colonel Macon.  “Nothing easier in this world, sir!  Just you turn right square round, and face her, sir; and you’ll see that she’ll stop short, sir; and, what’s more, she’ll run, sir!”

“How am I to face her?” asked Mr Brandon.  “I have faced her, and I assure you, sir, she didn’t run.”

“That was because you did not go to work in the right way,” said the colonel.  “Now, if I were in your place, sir, this is what I would do.  I’d turn on her and I’d scare her out of all the wits she has left.  I’d say to her:  ’Madam, I think your proposition is an excellent one.  I am ready to marry you to-day, or, at the very latest, to-morrow morning.  I’ll come to your house, and bring a clergyman, and some of my friends.  Don’t let there be the least delay, for I desire to start immediately for New York, and to take you with me.’  Now, sir, a note like that would frighten that old woman so that she would leave her house, and wouldn’t come back for six weeks; and the letter you have just burned would be the last attack she would make on you.  Now, sir, that is what I would do if I were in your place.”

Mr Brandon sat down, drained his tumbler of egg-nogg, and began to think of what his friend had said.  And, as he thought of it, the conviction forced itself upon him that this idea of Colonel Macon’s was a good one; in fact, a splendid one.  Now that he came to look upon the matter more clearly than he had done before, he saw that this persecution on the part of the Widow Keswick was not only base, but cowardly.  He had been entirely too yielding, had given way too much.  Yes, he would face her!  By George! that was a royal idea!  He would turn round, and make a dash at her, and scare her out of her five senses.

Pens, ink, and paper were brought out; more egg-nogg was ordered; and Mr Brandon, aided and abetted by Colonel Macon, wrote a letter to Mrs Keswick.