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.