"Well, Mary, do tell me. I
won't tell any one." But Mary refused to speak a word.
CHAPTER IV
The Rufford Correspondence
It might be surmised from the description which Lord Rufford had
given of his own position to his sister and his sister's two
friends, when he pictured himself as falling over the edge of the
precipice while they hung on behind to save him, that he was
sufficiently aware of the inexpediency of the proposed intimacy
with Miss Trefoil. Any one hearing him would have said that Miss
Trefoil's chances in that direction were very poor,--that a man
seeing his danger so plainly and so clearly understanding the
nature of it would certainly avoid it. But what he had said was no
more than Miss Trefoil knew that he would say,---or, at any rate
would think. Of course she had against her not only all his
friends,--but the man himself also and his own fixed intentions.
Lord Rufford was not a marrying man,--which was supposed to signify
that he intended to lead a life of pleasure till the necessity of
providing an heir should be forced upon him, when he would take to
himself a wife out of his own class in life twenty years younger
than himself for whom he would not care a straw. The odds against
Miss Trefoil were of course great;--but girls have won even against
such odds as these.
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