Page:Duty and Inclination 1.pdf/34

26 escape the penetration of the General or Mrs. De Brooke, and determined the former to lose no time in making inquiries into the character of one whom he had allowed with such unrestrained freedom to visit at his house. The ingenuous air of Douglas, his polite address, had hitherto spoken as passports in his favour, and the candid warmth with which he had then partly betrayed his sentiments could not be interpreted otherwise than to his advantage. His air of nobility, his general deportment, had indicated him by birth far superior to the adventitious and subordinate rank he held in the army; and under those embarassments so disastrous to his family, General De Brooke could feel no reasonable objection towards admitting his addresses. The happiness of his children was dear to his heart, and nothing could have given him a greater consolation in his afflictions than bestowing one or both of his daughters on objects deserving them.

In the course of conversation which followed these reflections of the General, Douglas, in speaking of his brother, Lord Deloraine, said that he expected to see him shortly in England, "which," added he, glancing his eye towards Rosilia, "I am heartily glad of, as I have nothing now to call me hence; and had my brother not been coming, he might have conceived a visit due from me to him