concluded that he wholly yielded. "Yes, do," cried she, "send this money
this instant to Mr. James, the solicitor: he knows all about it, you say,
and he will see everybody paid."

"Stay, my dear Miss Stanley," said the vicar, "I cannot consent to this,
and you should be thankful that I am steady. If I were at this minute to
consent, and to do what you desire--pay away your whole fortune, you would
repent, and reproach me with my folly before the end of the year--before
six months were over."

"Never, never," said Helen.

Mrs. Collingwood strongly took her husband's side of the question. Helen
could have no idea, she said, how necessary money would be to her. It was
quite absurd to think of living upon air; could Miss Stanley think she was
to go on in this world without money?

Helen said she was not so absurd; she reminded Mrs. Collingwood that she
should still have what had been her mother's fortune. Before Helen had well
got out the words, Mrs. Collingwood replied,

"That will never do, you will never be able to live upon that; the interest
of Lady Anne Stanley's fortune, I know what it was, would just do for
pocket-money for you in the style of life for which you have been educated.
Some of your uncle's great friends will of course invite you presently, and
then you will find what is requisite with that set of people."

"Some of my uncle's friends perhaps will," said Helen; "but I am not
obliged to go to great or fine people, and if I cannot afford it I will
not, for I can live independently on what I have, be it ever so little."