“That is but a very indifferent character you bestow upon your daughter, Sir Thomas,” replied his lordship—­“I trust she deserves a better one at your hands.”

“Why, my lord,” replied the baronet, smiling after his own peculiar fashion, that is to say, with a kind of bitter sarcasm, “I have as good a right, I think, to exaggerate the failings of my daughter as you have to magnify those of your son.  But a truce to this, and to be serious:  I know the girl; you know, besides, something about women yourself, my lord, and I need not say that it is unwise to rely upon the moods and meditations of a young lady before marriage.  Upon the prospect of such an important change in their position, the best of them will assume a great deal.  The period constitutes the last limited portion of their freedom; and, of course, all the caprices of the heart, and all the giddy ebullitions of gratified vanity, manifest themselves so strangely, that it is extremely difficult to understand them, or know their wishes.  Under such circumstances, my lord, they will, in the very levity of delight, frequently say ‘no,’ when they mean ‘yes,’ and vice versa.”

“Sir Thomas,” replied his lordship, gravely, “marriage, instead of being the close, should be the commencement, of their happiness.  No woman, however, of sense, whether before marriage or after it, is difficult to be understood.  Upon a subject of such importance—­one that involves the happiness of her future life—­no female possessing truth and principle would, for one moment, suffer a misconception to exist.  Now your daughter, my favorite Lucy, is a girl of fine sense and high feeling, and I am at a loss, Sir Thomas, I assure you, to reconcile either one or the other with your metaphysics.  If Miss Gourlay sat for the disagreeable picture you have just drawn, she must be a great hypocrite, or you have grossly misrepresented her, which I conceive it is not now your interest or your wish to do.”

“But, my lord, I was speaking of the sex in general.”

“But, sir,” replied his lordship with dignity, “we are here to speak of your daughter.”

Our readers may perceive that the wily baronet was beating about the bush, and attempting to impose upon his lordship by vague disquisitions.  He was perfectly aware of Lord Cullamore’s indomitable love of truth, and he consequently feared to treat him with a direct imposition, taking it for granted that, if he had, an interview of ten minutes between Lucy and his lordship might lead to an exposure of his duplicity and falsehood.  He felt himself in a painful and distressing dilemma.  Aware that, if the excellent peer had the slightest knowledge of Lucy’s loathing horror of his son, he would never lend his sanction to the marriage, the baronet knew not whether to turn to the right or to the left, or, in other words, whether to rely on truth or falsehood.  At length, he began to calculate upon the possibility of his daughter’s