'You smile!' he cried; 'but if you knew what a deuced difficult thing it is, for a man who has got a little money, to please himself, you would find it a very serious affair. How the deuce can he be sure whether a woman, when once he has married her, would not, if her settlement be to her liking, dance at his funeral? The very thought of that would either carry me off in a fright within a month, or make me want to live for ever, merely to punish her. It's a hard thing having money! a deuced hard thing! One does not know who to trust. A poor man may find a wife in a moment, for if he sees any one that likes him, he knows it is for himself; but a rich man,—as Sir Jaspar says,—can never be sure whether the woman who marries him, would not, for the same pin-money, just as willingly follow him to the outside of the church, as to the inside!'

At the name of Sir Jaspar, Juliet involuntarily gave some attention, though she would make no reply.

'From the time,' continued Ireton, 'that I heard him pronounce those words, I have never been able to satisfy myself; nor to find out what would satisfy me. At least not till lately; and now that I know what I want, the difficulty of the business is to get it! And this is what I wish to consult with you about; for you must know, my dear, I can never be happy without being adored.'

Juliet, now, was surprised into suddenly looking at him, to see whether he were serious.

'Yes, adored! loved to distraction! I must be idolized for myself, myself alone; yet publicly worshiped, that all mankind may see,—and envy,—the passion I have been able to inspire!'

Suspecting that he meant some satire upon Elinor, Juliet again fixed her eyes upon her silk-worms.

'So you don't ask me what it is that makes me so devilish dutiful all of a sudden, in visiting my mamma? You think, perhaps, I have some debts to pay? No; I have no taste for gaming. It's the cursedest fatiguing thing in the world. If one don't mind what one's about, one is blown up in a moment; and to be always upon one's guard, is worse than ruin itself. So I am upon no coaxing expedition, I give you my word. What do you think it is, then, that brings me hither? Cannot you guess?—Hay?—Why it is to arrange something, somehow or other, for getting myself from under this terrible yoke, that seems upon the point of enslaving me. My neck feels galled by it already! I have naturally no taste for matrimony. And now that the business seems to be drawing to a point, and I am called upon to name my lawyer, and cavilled with to declare, to the uttermost sixpence, what I will do, and what I will give, to make my wife merry and comfortable upon my going out of the world,—I protest I shudder with horrour! I think there is nothing upon earth so mercenary, as a young nymph upon the point of becoming a bride!'

'Except,—' Juliet here could not resist saying, 'except the man,—young or old,—who is her bridegroom!'

'O, that's another thing! quite another thing! A man must needs take care of his house, and his table, and all that: but the horridest thing I know, is the condition tied to a man's obtaining the hand of a young woman; he can never solicit it, but by giving her a prospect of his death-bed! And she never consents to live with him, till she knows what she may gain by his dying! Tis the most shocking style of making love that can be imagined. I don't like it, I swear! What, now, would you advise me to do?'

'I?'