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140 De Brooke, should be promoted to the first colonelcy falling vacant. What more immediately, however, at that moment occupied his thoughts, was a matrimonial connection for his son with a lady of family, but of more distinguished fortune. Her person was unexceptionable; and he entertained not the slightest doubt but that De Brooke, on his naming her, would be instantly desirous to bend the knee and pay homage to this fair being—a prize so valuable, and in every respect worthy of his highest ambition.

With an aspect the most agreeable Sir Aubrey proceeded to state the infinite advantages to be derived from this contemplated union, while De Brooke, wholly unprepared for such an attack upon his feelings, by a proposition so new and distressing, became lost in perplexity and dismay. The warm eulogium passed by Sir Aubrey upon the object of his selection, proved how, deeply interested he was in the fulfilment of his views. That any obstacle could arise to oppose those views he had not admitted even of a possibility; and much less on the part of his son, who, he imagined, had but to hear, to obey, to solicit, and to obtain. With surprise and anger, therefore, he marked the embarrassment, the inward vexation, in which his