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ROMANCE AND REALITY.

tune is all at her own disposal, and would certainly go to Miss Emily at her death?"

"I do not see any reason why I should be so careful of Miss Emily's interests: I freely confess I prefer my own."

"Don't you see they are all one? Mrs. Arundel's property will be a very pretty windfall when you have been married a few years—not but that Emily has a handsome fortune—still, I don't see any necessity for being so disinterested: and pray, who has the foolish woman taken into her head?"

"Her choice will, I flatter myself, at least please you, as I myself am the fortunate man."

"I do beg you will not be so provoking—I am not in a humour for a joke."

"Joke, my dear sister?—marriage is a very serious piece of business."

"You don't mean to say that you are going to marry Mrs. Arundel?"

"Indeed I do. Now, to speak plainly—as I ought to do to a woman of sense like yourself—I am in debt over head and ears. Desperate diseases require desperate remedies. Miss Arundel has some silly fancy of her own: I remember she and Lord Merton flirted desperately. Besides, to tell you the truth, in town