'But I fear you have given him up for somebody else, who certainly won't marry you, and who can only mean to ruin you.'
'Nobody won't ruin me,' said Ruby. 'A girl has to look to herself, and I mean to look to myself.'
'I'm glad to hear you say so, but being out at night with such a one as Sir Felix Carbury is not looking to yourself. That means going to the devil head foremost.'
'I ain't a going to the devil,' said Ruby, sobbing and blushing.
'But you will, if you put yourself into the hands of that young man. He's as bad as bad can be. He's my own cousin, and yet I'm obliged to tell you so. He has no more idea of marrying you than I have; but were he to marry you, he could not support you. He is ruined himself, and would ruin any young woman who trusted him. I'm almost old enough to be your father, and in all my experience I never came across so vile a young man as he is. He would ruin you and cast you from him without a pang of remorse. He has no heart in his bosom;--none.' Ruby had now given way altogether, and was sobbing with her apron to her eyes in one corner of the room. 'That's what Sir Felix Carbury is,' said the Squire, standing up so that he might speak with the more energy, and talk her down more thoroughly. 'And if I understand it rightly,' he continued, 'it is for a vile thing such as he, that you have left a man who is as much above him in character, as the sun is above the earth. You think little of John Crumb because he does not wear a fine coat.'
'I don't care about any man's coat,' said Ruby; 'but John hasn't ever a word to say, was it ever so.'
'Words to say! what do words matter? He loves you. He loves you after that fashion that he wants to make you happy and respectable, not to make you a bye-word and a disgrace.' Ruby struggled hard to make some opposition to the suggestion, but found herself to be incapable of speech at the moment. 'He thinks more of you than of himself, and would give you all that he has. What would that other man give you? If you were once married to John Crumb, would any one then pull you by the hairs of your head? Would there be any want then, or any disgrace?'