daughter, Marie Clinton, alone. We painted big CLINTON

"He is as ignorant as a babe unborn -- I mean about that kind of thing. I don't doubt he can make things in stone as well as anybody."

"Marble is stone, I suppose -- or in iron."

"Very well. There is iron in bronze, I suppose. But he doesn't know what a wife will cost. Has he bought any furniture?"

"He is going to buy it -- just a little -- what will do."

"Why should you want to bring him into this?"

Lucy looked wistfully up into his face. He himself had been personally kind to her, and she found it to be impossible to complain to him of her aunt. "You are not happy here?"

"My aunt and cousins think that I am wrong; but I must be married to him now, Uncle Tom."

"Why did he kick up his heels when I wanted to help him?" Nevertheless, he gave his orders on the subject very much in Lucy's favour. She was to be married from Queen's Gate, and Gertrude must be her bridesmaid. Ayala no doubt would be the other. When his wife expostulated, he consented that the marriage should be very quiet, but still he would have it as he had said. Then he bestowed a cheque upon Lucy -- larger in amount than Stubbs's loan -- saying that after what had passed in Lombard Street he would not venture to send money to so independent a person as Mr Isadore Hamel; but adding that Lucy, perhaps, would condescend to accept it. There was a smile in his eye as he said the otherwise ill-natured word, so that Lucy, without any wound to her feelings, could kiss him and accept his bounty.