‘How old is she?’ asked Frank.

‘I really cannot say exactly,’ said the countess; ’but it is not, I imagine, a matter of much moment.’

‘Is she thirty?’ asked Frank, who looked upon an unmarried woman of that age as quite an old maid.

‘I dare say she may be about that age,’ said the countess, who regarded the subject from a very different point of view.

‘Thirty!’ said Frank out loud, but speaking, nevertheless as though to himself.

‘It is a matter of no moment,’ said his aunt, almost angrily.  ’When a subject itself is of such vital importance, objections of no real weight should not be brought into view.  If you wish to hold up your head in the country; if you wish to represent your county in Parliament, as has been done by your father, your grandfather, and your great-grandfathers; if you wish to keep a house over your head, and to leave Greshamsbury to your son after you, you must marry money.  What does it signify whether Miss Dunstable be twenty-eight or thirty?  She has got money; and if you marry her, you may then consider that your position in life is made.’

Frank was astonished at his aunt’s eloquence; but, in spite of that eloquence, he made up his mind that he would not marry Miss Dunstable.  How could he, indeed, seeing that his troth was already plighted to Mary Thorne in the presence of his sister?  This circumstance, however, he did not choose to plead to his aunt, so he recapitulated any other objections that presented themselves to his mind.

In the first place, he was so anxious about his degree that he could not think of marrying at present; then he suggested that it might be better to postpone the question till the season’s hunting should be over; he declared that he could not visit Courcy Castle till he got a new suit of clothes home from the tailor; and ultimately remembered that he had a particular engagement to go fly-fishing with Mr Oriel on that day week.

None, however, of these valid reasons were sufficiently potent to turn the countess from her point.

‘Nonsense, Frank,’ said she, ’I wonder that you can talk of fly-fishing when the property of Greshamsbury is at stake.  You will go with Augusta and myself to Courcy Castle to-morrow.’

‘To-morrow, aunt!’ he said, in the tone which a condemned criminal might make his ejaculation on hearing that a very near day had been named for his execution.  ‘To-morrow!’

’Yes, we return to-morrow, and shall be happy to have your company.  My friends, including Miss Dunstable, come on Thursday.  I am quite sure you will like Miss Dunstable.  I have settled all that with your mother, so we need say nothing further about it.  And now, good-night, Frank.’

Frank, finding that there was nothing more to be said, took his departure, and went out to look for Mary.  But Mary had gone home with Janet half an hour since, so he betook himself to his sister Beatrice.