“Now, come, Liz; don’t let us quarrel: let us be reasonable and talk this over like brother and sister. Will you listen to me?”

“Oh, Charley!” she replied through her starting tears; “do I not listen to you, and hear many hard things!”

“Then I am sorry. There, Liz! I am unfeignedly sorry. Only you do put me out so. Now see. Mr. Headstone is perfectly devoted to you. He has told me in the strongest manner that he has never been his old self for one single minute since I first brought him to see you. Miss Peecher, our schoolmistress⁠—pretty and young, and all that⁠—is known to be very much attached to him, and he won’t so much as look at her or hear of her. Now, his devotion to you must be a disinterested one; mustn’t it? If he married Miss Peecher, he would be a great deal better off in all worldly respects, than in marrying you. Well then; he has nothing to get by it, has he?”

“Nothing, Heaven knows!”