CHAPTER VII.
PROVIDENCE SEES FIT TO HELP VILLANY.
"Now that's what I call bones." It was a currish image, suggestive of the choicest satisfaction.

Let us try to discover what good news such an idiosyncrasy as that of John Dillaway would be pleased to designate as "bones." He had forthwith gone to his father's room as merry at the chance of ousting poor Maria, as the heartlessness of avarice could make him; and omnipresent authorship jotted down the dialogue that follows: "So, governor, there's to be a wedding here, I find; when does it come off ?" "Ey?
what?
a wedding?
whose ?" "Oh, ho! you don't know, ey?
I guessed as much: what do you think now of our laughing, and crying, and kissing, and praying Miss Maria with-- "Not that beggar Clements?
Ey?
what?
d----" &c., &c.
"Ha, ha, ha, ha! I thought so; why not, governor?
Are you an old mole, that you haven't seen it these six weeks?
Are you stone deaf, that all their pretty speeches have been wasted on you?
All I can say is, that if Mr.and Mrs.Clements an't spliced, it's pretty well time they should be, and-- "Sir Thomas Dillaway rattled out so terrible an oath about Maria's disinheritance if she ventured upon a marriage, that even John was staggered at such a dreadful curse; nevertheless, an instantaneous reflection soon caused that curse to be viewed metaphorically as a 'bone;' and the generous brother cautiously proceeded-- "Why, governor, all this is very odd, must say; when I caught 'em kissing up there ten minutes ago, they were sharp enough to swear that you knew all about it, and that you were so 'very, very kind.'" How is it possible, intelligent reader, to avoid perpetual allusion to an oath?
We must not pare the lion's claws, and give bad men soft speeches: pr'ythee, supply an occasional interjection, and believe that in this place Sir Thomas swore most awfully; then, in a complete phrensy, he vowed that he "would turn Maria out of house and home this minute." This was another "bone," clearly.
But it was now becoming politic to calm him.

Shrewd Jack was well aware that Maria would relinquish all, and sacrifice, not merely her own heart, but her Henry's too, rather than be guilty of filial disobedience.

All this storming, hopeful as it looked, might still be premature, and do no substantial good; nay, if this wrath broke out too soon, Maria would at once give way, become more dutiful than ever, and his golden chance was gone.

No: they were not married yet.