“Of course you know, I suppose, that these vaporish affections are, with most young girls, nothing but the performance of the part which they choose to act before marriage; the mere mists of the morning, poor wenches, which only prognosticate for themselves and their husbands an unclouded day.  All this make-believe is very natural; and it is a good joke, besides, to see them pout and look grave, and whine and cry, and sometimes do the hysteric, whilst they are all the time dying in secret, the hypocritical baggages, to get themselves transformed into matrons.  Don’t, therefore, be a whit surprised or alarmed if you find Miss Lucy in the pout—­she is only a girl, after all, and has her little part to play, as well as the best of them.  Still, such a change is often in reality a serious one to a young woman; and you need not be told that no animal will allow itself to be caught without an effort.  When you see her, therefore, pluck up your spirits, rattle away, laugh and jest, so as, if possible, to get her into good humor, and there is no danger of you.  Or stay—­I am wrong.  Had you followed this advice, it would have played the deuce with you.  Don’t be merry.  On the contrary, pull a long face—­be grave and serious; and if you can imitate the manner of one of those fellows who pass for young men of decided piety, you were nothing but a made man.  Have you a Bible?  If you have, commit half-a-dozen texts to memory, and intersperse them judiciously through your conversation.  Talk of the vanity of life, the comforts of religion, and the beauty of holiness.  But don’t overdo the thing either.  Just assume the part of a young person on whose mind the truth is beginning to open, because Lucy knows now very well that these rapid transitions are suspicious.  At all events, you will do the best you can; and if you are here to-morrow—­say about three o’clock—­she will see you.

“Ever, my dear Dunroe,

“Faithfully, your father-in-law that is to be,

“Thomas Gourlay.”

This precious epistle Dunroe found upon his table after returning from his ride in the Phoenix Park; and having perused it, he immediately rang for Norton, from whom he thought it was much too good a thing to be concealed.

“Norton,” said he, “I am beginning to think that this black fellow, the baronet, is not such a disgraceful old scoundrel as I had thought him.  There’s not a bad thing in its way—­read it.”

Norton, after throwing his eye over it, laughed heartily.

“Egad,” said he, “that fellow has a pretty knowledge of life; but it is well he recovered himself in the instructions, for, from all that I have heard of Miss Gourlay, his first code would have ruined you, sure enough.”

“I am afraid I will break down, however, in the hypocrisy.  I failed cursedly with the old peer, and am not likely to be more successful with her.”