MR. CHAINMAIL. Then from yourself alone I seek them.

MISS SUSANNAH. Reflect. You have prejudices on the score of
parentage. I have not conversed with you so often without knowing
what they are. Choose between them and me. I too have my own
prejudices on the score of personal pride.

MR. CHAINMAIL. I would choose you from all the world, were you
even the daughter of the executeur des hautes oeuvres, as the
heroine of a romantic story I once read turned out to be.

MISS SUSANNAH. I am satisfied. You have now a right to know my
history, and if you repent, I absolve you from all obligations.

She told him her history; but he was out of the reach of
repentance. "It is true," as at a subsequent period he said to the
captain, "she is the daughter of a money-changer: one who, in the
days of Richard the First, would have been plucked by the beard in
the streets: but she is, according to modern notions, a lady of
gentle blood. As to her father's running away, that is a minor
consideration: I have always understood, from Mr. Mac Quedy, who
is a great oracle in this way, that promises to pay ought not to be
kept; the essence of a safe and economical currency being an
interminable series of broken promises. There seems to be a
difference among the learned as to the way in which the promises
ought to be broken; but I am not deep enough in this casuistry to
enter into such nice distinctions."

In a few days there was a wedding, a pathetic leave-taking of the