’The little, plain girl, covered with diamonds, who was standing beside Miss Nugent?’

’In di’monds, yes.  But you won’t think her plain when you see more of her—­that wears off; I thought her plain, at first—­I hope—­’

‘I hope,’ said Lord Colambre, ’that you will not take it unkindly of me, my dear mother, if I tell you, at once, that I have no thoughts of marrying at present—­and that I never will marry for money.  Marrying an heiress is not even a new way of paying old debts—­at all events, it is one to which no distress could persuade me to have recourse; and as I must, if I outlive old Mr. Quin, have an independent fortune, there is no occasion to purchase one by marriage.’

‘There is no distress, that I know of, in the case,’ cried Lady Clonbrony.  ’Where is your imagination running, Colambre?  But merely for your establishment, your independence.’

’Establishment, I want none—­independence I do desire, and will preserve.  Assure my father, my dear mother, that I will not be an expense to him.  I will live within the allowance he made me at Cambridge—­I will give up half of it—­I will do anything for his convenience—­but marry for money, that I cannot do.’

‘Then, Colambre, you are very disobliging,’ said Lady Clonbrony, with an expression of disappointment and displeasure; ’for your father says, if you don’t marry Miss Broadhurst, we can’t live in Lon’on another winter.’

This said—­which, had she been at the moment mistress of herself, she would not have let out—­Lady Clonbrony abruptly quitted the room.  Her son stood motionless, saying to himself—­

‘Is this my mother?—­How altered!’

The next morning he seized an opportunity of speaking to his father, whom he caught, with difficulty, just when he was going out, as usual, for the day.  Lord Colambre, with all the respect due to his father, and with that affectionate manner by which he always knew how to soften the strength of his expressions, made nearly the same declarations of his resolution, by which his mother had been so much surprised and offended.  Lord Clonbrony seemed more embarrassed, but not so much displeased.  When Lord Colambre adverted, as delicately as he could, to the selfishness of desiring from him the sacrifice of liberty for life, to say nothing of his affections, merely to enable his family to make a splendid figure in London, Lord Clonbrony exclaimed, ’That’s all nonsense!—­cursed nonsense!  That’s the way we are obliged to state the thing to your mother, my dear boy, because I might talk her deaf before she would understand or listen to anything else.  But, for my own share, I don’t care a rush if London was sunk in the salt sea.  Little Dublin for my money, as Sir Terence O’Fay says.’

‘Who is Sir Terence O’Fay, may I ask, sir?’

’Why, don’t you know Terry?  Ay, you’ve been so long at Cambridge, I forgot.  And did you never see Terry?’