But if I say that my father worked hard to get what he got and deserved it, and was an honest man, and that this great personage of San Miniato is a penniless gambler, who does not know to-day where he will find pocket money for to-morrow, and has got by a trick the fortune my father got by hard work--then you will not like it.

Then you will throw up your hands and cry 'Beatrice!' Then you will tell me that he loves me to distraction, and you will even try to make me think that I love him.

It is all a miserable sham, mamma, a vile miserable sham! Give it up.

I have said that I will marry him, since it appears that I have promised.

But do not try to make me think that I am marrying him of my own free will, or he marrying me out of disinterested, pure, beautiful, upright affection!" Having delivered herself of these particularly strong sentiments, Beatrice was silent for a while.