“The letters, my dear Anne; remember that you have got to earn your letters. I am very much obliged to you for your nursing, but business is business.”
She was silent for a moment, and then spoke in her ordinary tone.
“By the way, talking of letters, there was one came for you this morning in your cousin Philip’s handwriting, and with a London postmark. Will you read it?”
“Read it—yes; anything from the father of my inamorata will be welcome.”
She fetched the letter and gave it him. He read it aloud. After a page of congratulations on his convalescence, it ended,
“And now I want to make a proposal to you—viz., to buy back the Isleworth lands from you. I know that the place is distasteful to you, and will probably be doubly so after your severe illness; but, if you care to keep the house and grounds, I am not particularly anxious to acquire them. I am prepared to offer a good price,” &c. &c.
“I’ll see him hanged first,” was George’s comment. “How did he get the money?”
“Saved it and made it, I suppose.”
“Well, at any rate, he shall not buy me out with it. No, no, Master Philip; I am not fond enough of you to do you that turn.”
“It does not strike you,” she said, coldly, “that you hold in your hands a lever that may roll all your difficulties about this girl out of the way.”