“Why, as to that, Miss Gourlay, I have myself peculiar opinions; and I am glad that they avail me here.  You will think it odd, now, that I had made my mind up never to marry a woman who loved me.  This is really fortunate.”

“I don’t understand you, my lord.”

“Well, I suppose you don’t; but I shall make myself intelligible as well as I can.  Love before marriage, in my opinion, is exceedingly dangerous to future happiness; and I will tell you why I think so.  In the first place, a great deal of that fuel which feeds the post-matrimonial flame is burned away and wasted unnecessarily; the imagination, too, is raised to a ridiculous and most enthusiastic expectation of perpetual bliss and ecstasy; then comes disappointment, coolness, indifference, and the lights go out for want of the fuel I mentioned; and altogether the domestic life becomes rather a dull and tedious affair.  The wife wonders that the husband is no longer a, lover; and the husband cannot for the soul of him see all the—­the—­the—­ahem!—­I scarcely know what to call them—­that enchanted him before marriage.  Then, you perceive, that when love is necessary, the fact comes out that it was most injudiciously expended before the day of necessity.  Both parties feel, in fact, that the property has been prematurely squandered—­like many another property—­and when it is wanted, there is nothing to fall back upon.  I wish to God affection could be funded, so that when a married couple found themselves low in pocket in that commodity they could draw the interest or sell out at once.”

“And what can you expect, my lord, from those who marry without affection?” asked Lucy.

“Ten chances for happiness,” replied his lordship, “for one that results from love.  When such persons meet, mark you, Miss Gourlay, they are not enveloped in an artificial veil of splendor, which the cares of life, and occasionally a better knowledge of each other, cause to dissolve from about them, leaving them stripped of those imaginary qualities of mind and person which never had any existence at all, except in their hypochondriac brains, when love-stricken; whereas, your honest, matter-of-fact people come together—­first with indifference, and, as there is nothing angelic to be expected on either side, there is consequently no disappointment.  There has, in fact, been no sentimental fraud committed—­no swindle of the heart—­for love, too, like its relation, knavery, has its black-legs, and very frequently raises credit upon false pretences; the consequence is, that plain honesty begins to produce its natural effects.”

“Can this man,” thought Lucy, “have been taking lessons from papa?  And pray, my lord,” she proceeded, “what are those effects which marriage without love—­produces?”