"You seem more annoyed than anything else," said Jim crossly to Elsie, when the final arrangements were being made in the rectory study.
"I cannot say I am pleased," replied the girl. "I fear lest you should be disappointed, Jim; and, on the other hand, I don't want to be anything but what I am. I have not been brought up a lady, and to find that I had been born one would be no pleasure. If you could be a lord, Jim, without affecting me, it would be all right."
"Why, Elsie, you have no ambition."
"None to be put in a false position, which I could not rightly fill."
CHAPTER IX.
"What a solemn and mysterious communication," said Lady Waterham, laughing, as she handed a letter across the breakfast table to her husband.
"Pooh! my dear, it is some Irish beggar; you had better not see him," said his lordship as he rose from the table.
"O scarcely—it would be too impertinent."
The letter ran as follows:—