of money for Alexandrina, almost worthy of the acceptance of an earl’s daughter.  Six months ago he would have considered himself able to turn Mortimer Gazebee round his finger on any subject that could be introduced between them.  When they chanced to meet Gazebee had been quite humble to him, treating him almost as a superior being.  He had looked down on Gazebee from a very great height.  But now it seemed as though he were powerless in this man’s hands.

But perhaps the countess had become his greatest aversion.  She was perpetually writing to him little notes in which she gave him multitudes of commissions, sending him about as though he had been her servant.  And she pestered him with advice which was even worse than her commissions, telling him of the style of life in which Alexandrina would expect to live, and warning him very frequently that such an one as he could not expect to be admitted within the bosom of so noble a family without paying very dearly for that inestimable privilege.  Her letters had become odious to him, and he would chuck them on one side, leaving them for the whole day unopened.  He had already made up his mind that he would quarrel with the countess also, very shortly after his marriage; indeed, that he would separate himself from the whole family if it were possible.  And yet he had entered into this engagement mainly with the view of reaping those advantages which would accrue to him from being allied to the de Courcys!  The squire and his nephew were wretched in thinking that this man was escaping without punishment, but they might have spared themselves that misery.

It had been understood from the first that he was to spend his Christmas at Courcy Castle.  From this undertaking it was quite out of his power to enfranchise himself:  but he resolved that his visit should be as short as possible.  Christmas Day unfortunately came on a Monday, and it was known to the de Courcy world that Saturday was almost a dies non at the General Committee Office.  As to those three days there was no escape for him; but he made Alexandrina understand that the three Commissioners were men of iron as to any extension of those three days.  “I must be absent again in February, of course,” he said, almost making his wail audible in the words he used, “and therefore it is quite impossible that I should stay now beyond the Monday.”  Had there been attractions for him at Courcy Castle I think he might have arranged with Mr Optimist for a week or ten days.  “We shall be all alone,” the countess wrote to him, “and I hope you will have an opportunity of learning more of our ways than you have ever really been able to do as yet.”  This was bitter as gall to him.  But in this world all valuable commodities have their price; and when men such as Crosbie aspire to obtain for themselves an alliance with noble families, they must pay the market price for the article which they purchase.

“You’ll all come up and dine with us on Monday,” the squire said to Mrs Dale, about the middle of the previous week.