'Nay, my dear,' mildly said Aunt Catharine, 'if it were mistaken, I
am sure it was not intentionally cruel.'

'What I call wicked is to sacrifice the welfare of dependents to our
own selfish convenience! And you would call it cruel too, Aunt
Catharine, if you could hear the poor creatures beg as a favour of
Mr. Holdsworth to be buried among their kin, and know how it has
preyed on the minds of the dying that they might not lie here among
their own people.'

'Change the subject, Fitzjocelyn,' said his father: 'the thing is
done, and cannot be undone.'

'The undoing is my daily thought,' said Louis. 'If I could have
tried my plan of weaving cordage out of cotton-grass and thistle-
down, I think I could have contrived for them.'

Mary looked up, and met his merry blue eye. Was he saying it so
gravely to try whether he could take her in? 'If you could--' she
said, and he went off into a hearty laugh, and finished by saying, so
that no one could guess whether it was sport or earnest, 'Even taking
into account the depredations of the goldfinches, it would be an
admirable speculation, and would confer immeasurable benefits on the
owners of waste lands. I mean to take out a patent when I have
succeeded in the spinning.'

'A patent for a donkey,' whispered Aunt Catharine. He responded with
a deferential bow, and the conversation was changed by the Earl; but
copper was still the subject uppermost with Louis, and no sooner was
dinner over than he followed the ladies to the library, and began