“As to that, Lord Glenallan, or any man with his fortune, may be whatever he chooses.  He has a right to be in love.  He can afford to be in love.”

“I have heard much of the torments of love,” said Lady Emily; “but I never heard it rated as a luxury before.  I hope there is no chance of your being made Premier, otherwise I fear we should have a tax upon love-marriages immediately.”

“It would be greatly for the advantage of the nation, as well as the comfort of individuals, if there was,” returned the Doctor.  “Many a pleasant fellow has been lost to society by what you call a love-marriage.  I speak from experience.  I was obliged to drop the oldest friend I had upon his making one of your love-marriages.”

“What! you were afraid of the effects of evil example?” asked Lady Emily.

“No—­it was not for that; but he asked me to take a family dinner with him one day, and I, without knowing anything of the character of the woman he had married, was weak enough to go.  I found a very so-so tablecloth and a shoulder of mutton, which ended our acquaintance.  I never entered his door after it.  In fact, no man’s happiness is proof against dirty tablecloths and bad dinners; and you may take my word for it, Lady Emily, these are the invariable accompaniments of your love-marriages.”

“Pshaw! that is only amongst the bourgeois," said Lady Emily affectedly; “that is not the sort of menage I mean to have.  Here is to be the style of my domestic establishment;” and she repeated Shenstone’s beautiful pastoral—­

    “My banks they are furnished with bees,” etc.,

till she came to—­

    “I have found out a gift for my fair,
     I have found where the wood-pigeons breed.”

“There’s some sense in that,” cried the Doctor, who had been listening with great weariness.”  You may have a good pigeon-pie, or un saute de pigeons au sang, which is still better when well dressed.”

“Shocking!” exclaimed Lady Emily; “to mention pigeon-pies in the same breath with nightingales and roses!”

“I’ll tell you what, Lady Emily, it’s just these sort of nonsensical descriptions that do all the mischief amongst you young ladies.  It’s these confounded poets that turn all your heads, and make you think you have nothing to do after you are married but sit beside fountains and grottoes, and divert yourself with birds and flowers, instead of looking after your servants, and paying your butcher’s bills; and, after all, what is the substance of that trash you have just been reading, but to say that the man was a substantial farmer and grazier, and had bees; though I never heard of any man in his senses going to sleep amongst his beehives before.  ’Pon my soul! if I had my will I would burn every line of poetry that ever was written.  A good recipe for a pudding is worth all that your Shenstones and the whole set of them ever wrote; and there’s more good sense and useful information in this book”—­rapping his knuckles against a volume he held in his hand—­“than in all your poets, ancient and modern.”