Do you love best the miserable garret in London, the hard fare and squalid dress, or your lodgment here, the sense of luxury, the sight of splendour, the atmosphere of wealth?
You have the choice before you." "I choose, as you would have me, then," said the boy, "the last." "I believe you.

Attend! You do not love me,--that is natural; you are the son of Clara Varney! You have supposed that in loving Lucretia Clavering you might vex or thwart me, you scarce knew how; and Lucretia Clavering has gold and gifts and soft words and promises to bribe withal.

I now tell you openly my plan with regard to this girl: it is my aim to marry her; to be master of this house and these lands.

If I succeed, you share them with me.

By betraying me, word or look, to Lucretia, you frustrate this aim; you plot against our rise and to our ruin.