"You have _tact_ enough, Walter, if you will only use it properly and
_prudently_. The mortgage on Cedar Hall has nearly expired; I have not a
solitary dollar to pay it, and the consequence will be--a foreclosure,
unless some miracle occurs to redeem it. _Your_ business must not be
broken down, by drawing on your capital!" said Mrs. Jerrold, pressing the
yolk of a hard-boiled egg through the gilded wires of her mocking-bird's
cage.

"I'll move heaven and earth, mother, before Cedar Hall shall go out of
the family. If I can bring things to pass with old Stillinghast, I
might, on the credit of marrying one of his heiresses raise the money at
a ruinous interest. At any rate, Cedar Hall, goes not from the
Jerrolds," he exclaimed.

"But, Walter, I understand that both of those girls are Catholics?"

"That's bad; but I fancy I shall be able to put down all that sort of
thing, in case I win the lady," he said, twirling an opal seal.

"And _who_ are they? I have a horror of low families."

"Make yourself easy on that score, they are our equals, I imagine. I am
very certain that none of them have been hung, or sent to the
penitentiary; and I presume there have been more _gentlemen_ in the
family, than self-made men, from the simple fact, that both of those
girls have been left quite penniless, and dependent on their uncle. I
believe, however, that the father of one was a major in the army; the
other, a captain in the navy," said Mr. Jerrold, laughing.

"I am glad to hear it. I assure you that _family_ is no unimportant