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 I believe he'll lend us the Royal Chapel to be married in. And faith, my lord, what if he gave away the bride!"

The dear old gentleman, who never could find it in his heart to deny us women anything, was visibly shaken by my ruddy eloquence and the excited flashing of my eyes.

"But these winter mornings are most harsh towards us men of middle age," says he.

"My dear papa," says I, "your years sit so neatly on you that it is the height of affectation for you to claim the least infirmity. Now I will see that you retire at nine o'clock this evening; I will have your man prepare your baggage, and see that he puts a water-bottle in the chaise. Leave everything to me, my dear papa, and depend upon it you shall start for town at twenty after six to-morrow, as blithely as you did upon your wedding morning. But, sir, there is one thing that you must promise me: not a word to my most admirable aunt. A long course of theology and smelling salts hath perverted the original poetry of her soul."

His lordship promised gallantly, but quite as much, I think, from a fear of Lady Caroline as from his natural disposition to oblige me. Having once wrung a kind of tottering consent from the old, reluctant gentleman, I was at great pains to keep him to his word. I planned everything relating to his journey with the greatest perspicacity and promptitude, nor did I omit to advise his lordship of the fact. But I had to confess to my private mind that