If I stick to her--that is to my own poor struggling way, under providence, of watching over them ALL--she'll stand by me to the death.

She won't give me away.

For, you know, she easily can." This, regularly, was the most lurid turn of their road; but Bob Assingham, with each journey, met it as for the first time.

"Easily ?" "She can utterly dishonour me with her father.

She can let him know that I was aware, at the time of his marriage--as I had been aware at the time of her own--of the relations that had pre-existed between his wife and her husband." "And how can she do so if, up to this minute, by your own statement, she is herself in ignorance of your knowledge ?" It was a question that Mrs.Assingham had ever, for dealing with, a manner to which repeated practice had given almost a grand effect; very much as if she was invited by it to say that about this, exactly, she proposed to do her best lying.