Suppose you had joined your fortunes to sighing Luke's, Rachel, and gone
out with him to grow rich together?" added Frederick Massingbird, in a
tone which could be taken for either jest or earnest.

She evidently took it as the latter, and it appeared to call up an angry
spirit. She was vexed almost to tears. Frederick Massingbird detected
it.

"Silly Rachel!" he said, with a smile. "Do you suppose I should really
counsel your throwing yourself away upon Luke Roy?--Rachel," he
continued, as the housekeeper again made her appearance, "you must bring
up the things as soon as they are ready. My brother is waiting for
them."

"I'll bring them up, sir," replied Rachel.

Frederick Massingbird passed through the passages to the hall, and then
proceeded upstairs to the bedroom occupied by his brother. A
sufficiently spacious room for any ordinary purpose, but it did not look
half large enough now for the litter that was in it. Wardrobes and
drawers were standing open, their contents half out, half in; chairs,
tables, bed, were strewed; and boxes and portmanteaus were gaping open
on the floor. John Massingbird, the elder brother, was stowing away some
of this litter into the boxes; not all sixes and sevens, as it looked
lying there, but compactly and artistically. John Massingbird possessed
a ready hand at packing and arranging; and therefore he preferred doing
it himself to deputing it to others. He was one year older than his
brother, and there was a great likeness between them in figure and in
feature. Not in expression: in that, they were widely different. They
were about the same height, and there was the same stoop observable in