Shirley

was withheld.
    »No: I shall not marry Samuel Fawthrop Wynne.«
    »I ask why? I must have a reason. In all respects he is more than worthy of you.«
    She stood on the hearth; she was pale as the white marble slab and cornice behind her; her eyes flashed large, dilated, unsmiling.
    »And
I
ask in what sense that young man is worthy of
me?
«
    »He has twice your money, – twice your common sense; – equal connexions, – equal respectability.«
    »Had he my money counted five score times, I would take no vow to love him.«
    »Please to state your objections.«
    »He has run a course of despicable, commonplace profligacy. Accept that as the first reason why I spurn him.«
    »Miss Keeldar, you shock me!«
    »That conduct alone sinks him in a gulf of immeasurable inferiority. His intellect reaches no standard I can esteem: – there is a second stumbling-block. His views are narrow; his feelings are blunt; his tastes are coarse; his manners vulgar.«
    »The man is a respectable, wealthy man. To refuse him is presumption on your part.«
    »I refuse, point-blank! Cease to annoy me with the subject: I forbid it!«
    »Is it your intention ever to marry, or do you prefer celibacy?«
    »I deny your right to claim an answer to that question.«
    »May I ask if you expect some man of title – some peer of the realm – to demand your hand?«
    »I doubt if the peer breathes on whom I would confer it.«
    »Were there insanity in the family, I should believe you mad. Your eccentricity and conceit touch the verge of frenzy.«
    »Perhaps, ere I have finished, you will see me overleap it.«
    »I anticipate no less. Frantic and impracticable girl! Take warning! – I dare you to sully our name by a mésalliance!«
    »
Our
name! Am I called Sympson?«
    »God be thanked that you are not! But be on your guard! – I will not be trifled with!«
    »What, in the name of common law and common sense, would you, or could you do, if my pleasure led me to a choice you disapproved?«
    »Take care! take care!« (warning her with voice and hand that trembled alike.)
    »Why? What shadow of power have
you
over me? Why should I fear you?«
    »Take care, madam!«
    »Scrupulous care I will take, Mr. Sympson. Before I marry, I am resolved to esteem – to admire – to
love.
«
    »Preposterous stuff! – indecorous! – unwomanly!«
    »To love with my whole heart. I know I speak in an unknown tongue; but I feel indifferent whether I am comprehended or not.«
    »And if this love of yours should fall on a beggar?«
    »On a beggar it will never fall. Mendicancy is not estimable.«
    »On a low clerk, a play-actor, a play-writer, or – or –«
    »Take courage, Mr. Sympson! Or what?«
    »Any literary scrub, or shabby, whining artist.«
    »For the scrubby, shabby, whining, I have no taste: for literature and the arts, I have. And there I wonder how your Fawthrop Wynne would suit me? He cannot write a note without orthographical errors; he reads only a sporting paper: he was the booby of Stilbro' grammar school!«
    »Unladylike language! Great God! – to what will she come?« He lifted hands and eyes.
    »Never to the altar of Hymen with Sam Wynne.«
    »To what will she come? Why are not the laws more stringent, that I might compel her to hear reason?«
    »Console yourself, uncle. Were Britain a serfdom, and you the Czar, you could not
compel
me to this step.
I
will write to Mr. Wynne. Give yourself no further trouble on the subject.«
     
    Fortune is proverbially called changeful, yet her caprice often takes the form of repeating again and again a similar stroke of luck in the same quarter. It appeared that Miss Keeldar – or her fortune – had by this time made a sensation in the district, and produced an impression in quarters by her unthought of. No less than three offers followed Mr. Wynne's – all more or less eligible. All were in succession pressed on her by her uncle, and all in succession she refused. Yet amongst them was more than one gentleman of unexceptionable character, as well as ample wealth. Many besides her uncle asked what she meant, and whom she expected to entrap, that she was so insolently fastidious.
    At last, the gossips thought they had found the key to her conduct, and her uncle was sure of it; and, what is more, the discovery showed his niece to him in quite a new light, and he changed his whole deportment to her accordingly.
    Fieldhead had, of late, been fast growing too hot to hold them both: the suave aunt could not reconcile