of fortune like you, I should feel proud to lay it at her feet."

Mark heard him with indifference. He had never felt the least tender
emotion towards woman, whom he regarded as an inferior being, only
formed to administer to the wants, and contribute to the pleasures, of
man.

"Miss Wildegrave," he said, "might be a fine girl. But he could see no
beauty in a woman whose father had died upon the scaffold, and who had
no fortune. She and her mother were outcasts, who could no longer be
received into genteel society."

The valet, with more taste than his master, shrugged up his shoulders,
and answered with a significant smile: "Ah, sir! if we could but
exchange situations."

A few days after this conversation, Mark Hurdlestone met Elinor
Wildegrave by accident, and became deeply enamoured with the lovely
orphan.

In spite of his blunt speech and misanthropic manners, the young heir of
Oak Hall, at that period, was not wholly destitute of the art of
pleasing. He was sensible and well-read. His figure was commanding, and
his carriage good. His stern features were set off by the ruddy glow of
health; and the brilliancy of his lip and eye, the dazzling whiteness of
his small even teeth, and the rich masses of raven hair that curled in
profusion round his high forehead, atoned in some measure for the
disagreeable expression which at all times pervaded his remarkable
countenance.