'Happen to have got a little money--not so much as many a lord's got,
I dare say; such as 'tis, there 'tis. Young fellow I know wants a wife,
and he shall have best part of it. Will that suit ye, my lady?'

Lady Jocelyn folded her hands. 'Certainly; I've no objection. What it
has to do with me I can't perceive.'

'Ahem!' went Old Tom. 'It won't hurt your daughter to be married now,
will it?'

'Oh! my daughter is the destined bride of your "young fellow,"' said
Lady Jocelyn. 'Is that how it's to be?'

'She'--Old Tom cleared his throat 'she won't marry a lord, my lady; but
she--'hem--if she don't mind that--'ll have a deuced sight more hard cash
than many lord's son 'd give her, and a young fellow for a husband, sound
in wind and limb, good bone and muscle, speaks grammar and two or three
languages, and--'

'Stop!' cried Lady Jocelyn. 'I hope this is not a prize young man? If
he belongs, at his age, to the unco quid, I refuse to take him for a son-
in-law, and I think Rose will, too.'

Old Tom burst out vehemently: 'He's a damned good young fellow, though he
isn't a lord.'

'Well,' said Lady Jocelyn, 'I 've no doubt you're in earnest, Tom. It 's
curious, for this morning Rose has come to me and given me the first
chapter of a botheration, which she declares is to end in the common rash