‘So would I,’ cried Lord Colambre.

’I am glad to hear you say so, my lord, and with such energy; so few young men of the present day look to what I call good connexion.  In marrying, a man does not, to be sure, marry his wife’s mother; and yet a prudent man, when he begins to think of the daughter, would look sharp at the mother; ay, and back to the grandmother too, and along the whole female line of ancestry.’

‘True—­most true—­he ought he must.’

‘And I have a notion,’ said the count, smiling, ’your lordship’s practice has been conformable to your theory.’

‘I!—­mine!’ said Lord Colambre, starling, and looking at the count with surprise.

‘I beg your pardon,’ said the count; ’I did not intend to surprise your confidence.  But you forget that I was present, and saw the impression which was made on your mind by a mother’s want of a proper sense of delicacy and propriety—­Lady Dashfort.’

‘Oh, Lady Dashfort! she was quite out of my head.’

‘And Lady Isabel?—­I hope she is quite out of your heart.’

‘She never was in it,’ said Lord Colambre.

‘Only laid siege to it,’ said the count.  ’Well, I am glad your heart did not surrender at discretion, or rather without discretion.  Then I may tell you, without fear or preface, that the Lady Isabel, who “talks of refinement, delicacy, sense,” is going to stoop at once, and marry—­Heathcock.’

Lord Colambre was not surprised, but concerned and disgusted, as he always felt, even when he did not care for the individual, from hearing anything which tended to lower the female sex in public estimation.

‘As to myself,’ said he, ’I cannot say I have had an escape, for I don’t think I ever was in much danger.’

’It is difficult to measure danger when it is over—­past danger, like past pain, is soon forgotten,’ said the old general.  ’At all events, I rejoice in your present safety.’

‘But is she really going to be married to Heathcock?’ said Lord Colambre.

’Positively; they all came over in the same packet with me, and they are all in town now, buying jewels, and equipages, and horses.  Heathcock, you know, is as good as another man, A PEU PRES, for all those purposes; his father is dead, and left him a large estate.  QUE VOULEZ VOUS? as the French valet said to me on the occasion.  C’EST QUE monsieur EST Un Homme de Bien:  Il A DES BIENS, A CE QU’ON DIT.’

Lord Colambre could not help smiling.  ’How they got Heathcock to fall in love is what puzzles me,’ said his lordship.  ’I should as soon have thought of an oyster’s falling in love as that being!’

‘I own I should have sooner thought,’ replied the count, ’Of his falling in love with an oyster; and so would you, if you had seen him, as I did, devouring oysters on shipboard.

’Say, can the lovely heroine hope to vie With a fat turtle or a ven’son pie?