‘You may live to change them all,’ said the Doctor, ’and that very speedily.’

‘Impossible!’ said Lord Cadurcis.  ’My dear Doctor, I cannot understand you; you say that you hope, that you wish, even that you believe that I shall marry Venetia; and yet you permit me to infer that our union will only make us miserable.  What do you wish me to do?’

‘Go to college for a term or two.’

‘Without Venetia!  I should die.’

‘Well, if you be in a dying state you can return.’

‘You joke, my dear Doctor.’

‘My dear boy, I am perfectly serious.’

‘But she may marry somebody else?’

‘I am your only rival,’ said the Doctor, with a smile; ’and though even friends can scarcely be trusted under such circumstances, I promise you not to betray you.’

‘Your advice is not very pleasant,’ said his lordship.

‘Good advice seldom is,’ said the Doctor.

’My dear Doctor, I have made up my mind to marry her, and marry her at once.  I know her well, you admit that yourself.  I do not believe that there ever was a woman like her, that there ever will be a woman like her.  Nature has marked her out from other women, and her education has not been less peculiar.  Her mystic breeding pleases me.  It is something to marry a wife so fair, so pure, so refined, so accomplished, who is, nevertheless, perfectly ignorant of the world.  I have dreamt of such things; I have paced these old cloisters when a boy and when I was miserable at home, and I have had visions, and this was one.  I have sighed to live alone with a fair spirit for my minister.  Venetia has descended from heaven for me, and for me alone.  I am resolved I will pluck this flower with the dew upon its leaves.’

‘I did not know I was reasoning with a poet,’ said the Doctor, with a smile.  ‘Had I been conscious of it, I would not have been so rash.’

‘I have not a grain of poetry in my composition,’ said his lordship; ’I never could write a verse; I was notorious at Eton for begging all their old manuscripts from boys when they left school, to crib from; but I have a heart, and I can feel.  I love Venetia, I have always loved her, and, if possible, I will marry her, and marry her at once.’

CHAPTER V.

The reappearance of the ladies at the end of the cloister terminated this conversation, the result of which was rather to confirm Lord Cadurcis in his resolution of instantly urging his suit, than the reverse.  He ran forward to greet his friends with a smile, and took his place by the side of Venetia, whom, a little to her surprise, he congratulated in glowing phrase on her charming costume.  Indeed she looked very captivating, with a pastoral hat, then much in fashion, and a dress as simple and as sylvan, both showing to admirable advantage her long descending hair, and her agile and springy figure.