seemed utterly reckless of the pain he was inflicting. "But for your own folly, you might now be worth three thousand a-year,—ay, three thousand a-year, for I knew your father's rental. Why you are more thoughtless, more improvident than him—who went before you. You have sold your birthright for less than a mess of pottage. You have sold it for a phantom, a shade, a word,—and those who have bought it laugh at you, deride you. Out upon such folly! Three thousand a-year gone to feed those birds of prey—those vultures—that ravened upon your father's vitals while living, and now riot upon his offspring—it's monstrous, intolerable! Oh! if I had left my affairs in such a condition, and my daughter were to act thus, I should not rest in my grave!"
"And yet, in such a case, I should act precisely as this gentleman has acted, father," rejoined Hilda.
"If you approve my conduct, Miss Scarve, I am quite content to bear your father's reproaches," replied Randulph.
"You speak like one ignorant of the world, and of the value of money, Hilda," cried the miser, turning to her. "Heaven be praised! you will never be in such a situation. I shan't leave you much—not much—but what I do leave will be unembarrassed. It will be your own, too; no husband shall have the power to touch a farthing of it."
"Have a care, father," rejoined Hilda, "and do not clog your bequest with too strict conditions. If I marry, what I have shall be my husband's."
"Hilda," cried the miser, shaking with passion, "if I thought you in earnest I would disinherit you."
"No more of this, dear father," she rejoined, calmly, "I have no thought of marrying, and it is needless to discuss the point till it arises. Recollect, also, there is a stranger present."
"True," replied the miser, recovering himself. "This is not the time to talk over the subject, but I wont have my intentions misunderstood. And now," he added, sinking into the chair, and looking at Randulph, "Let me inquire after your mother I remember her well as Sophia Beechcroft, and a charming creature she was. You resemble her more than your father. Nay, restrain your blushes, I don't mean to flatter you. That which is a beauty in a woman, is a defect in a man; and your fair skin and long hair would become your sister, if you have one, better than yourself."
"Really, sir," rejoined Randulph, again reddening, "you make strangely free with me."
"I made free with your father before you, young man," rejoined the miser; "and it was for telling him a piece of my mind that I lost his friendship. More's the pity!—more's the pity! I would have served him if he would have let me. But to return to your mother. You acted unjustly to her, as well as to yourself, in not retaining the family estates."
"My mother has her own private property to live on," replied the young man, who winced under the stinging observations of the miser.
"And what's that?" rejoined Mr. Scarve, "a beggarly—I crave your pardon—a pitiful hundred a year or so. Not that a hundred a year is pitiful, but it must be so to her with her notions and habits."
"There you are mistaken, sir," replied Randulph; "my mother is entirely reconciled to her situation, and lives accordingly."
"I am glad to hear it," replied the miser, in a sceptical tone; "I own I did not give her credit for being able to do so, but I hope it is so."
"Hope, sir," cried Randulph, angrily; "is my word doubted?"
"Not in the least," rejoined the miser, drily; "but young people are apt to take things on trust. And now, as you have fooled away your fortune,
