Edith tried to soften her brother; but he was resolute, and said Raby Hall should never be an appendage to a workshop.  Sooner than that, he would settle it on his cousin Richard, a gentleman he abhorred, and never called, either to his face or behind his back, by any other name than “Dissolute Dick.”

Then Edith became very unhappy, and temporized more or less, till her lover, who had shown considerable forbearance, lost patience at last, and said she must either have no spirit, or no true affection for him.

Then came a month or two of misery, the tender clinging nature of the girl being averse to detach itself from either of these two persons.  She loved them both with an affection she could have so easily reconciled, if they would only have allowed her.

And it all ended according to Nature.  She came of age, plucked up a spirit, and married Mr. James Little.

Her brother declined to be present at the wedding; but, as soon as she returned from her tour, and settled in Hillsborough, he sent his groom with a cold, civil note, reminding her that their father had settled nineteen hundred pounds on her, for her separate use, with remainder to her children, if any; that he and Mr. Graham were the trustees of this small fund; that they had invested it, according to the provisions of the settlement, in a first mortgage on land; and informing her that half a year’s interest at 4 12 per cent was due, which it was his duty to pay into her own hand and no other person’s; she would therefore oblige him by receiving the inclosed check, and signing the inclosed receipt.

The receipt came back signed, and with it a few gentle lines, “hoping that, in time, he would forgive her, and bestow on her what she needed and valued more than money; her own brother’s, her only brother’s affection.”

On receiving this, his eyes were suddenly moist, and he actually groaned.  “A lady, every inch!” he said; “yet she has gone and married a bricklayer.”

Well, blood is thicker than water, and in a few years they were pretty good friends again, though they saw but little of one another, meeting only in Hillsborough, which Guy hated, and never drove into now without what he called his antidotes:  a Bible and a bottle of lavender-water.  It was his humor to read the one, and sprinkle the other, as soon as ever he got within the circle of the smoky trades.

When Edith’s little boy was nine years old, and much admired for his quickness and love of learning, and of making walking-stick heads and ladies’ work-boxes, Mr. Little’s prosperity received a severe check, and through his own fault.  He speculated largely in building villas, overdid the market, and got crippled.  He had contracts uncompleted, and was liable to penalties; and at last saw himself the nominal possessor of a brick wilderness, but on the verge of ruin for want of cash.

He tried every other resource first; but at last he came to his wife, to borrow her L1900.  The security he offered was a mortgage on twelve carcasses, or houses the bare walls and roofs of which were built.