nt, to remember his poor father, and not rush into a
hasty marriage. He and his sister had been used to poverty, but it was
different with Miss Conway.

He bitterly replied, that Lady Conway would take care they were not
imprudent; and that instant the granny's heart melted at the thought of
his uncertain prospect, and at hearing of the struggles and sufferings
that he had undergone. They had not talked half an hour, before she
had taken home Isabel Conway to her heart as a daughter, and flown in
the face of all her wisdom, but assuring him that she well knew that
riches had little to do with happiness, auguring an excellent living,
and, with great sagacity, promising to settle the Terrace on his wife,
and repeating, in perfect good faith, all the wonderful probabilities
which her husband had seen in it forty years ago.

When Louis arrived, he found her alone, and divided between pride in
her grandson's conquest, and some anxiety on his own account, which
took the form of asking him what he meant by saying that Isabel aimed
higher than himself.

'Did she not?' said Louis; and with a sort of compunction for a playful
allusion to the sacred calling, he turned it off with, 'Why, what do
you think of Roland ap Dynasvawr ap Roland ap Gruffydd ap Rhys ap
Morgan ap Llywellwyn ap Roderic ap Caradoc ap Arthur ap Uther ap
Pendragon?' running this off with calm, slow, impressive deliberation.

'Certify me, Louis dear, before I can quite rejoice, that this fun is
not put on.'

'Did you think me an arrant dissembler? No, indeed: before I guessed
how it was with them, I had found out--Oh! Aunt Kitty, shall I ever get
Mary to believe in me, after the ridiculous way in which I have behaved
to her?'

'Is this what you really mean?'

'Indeed it is. The very presence of Isabel could not keep me from
recurring to her; and at home, not a room, not a scene, but is replete
with recollections of all that she was to me last year! And that I
should only understand it when half the world is between us! How mad I
was! How shall I ever persuade her to forget my past folly? Past!
Nay, folly and inconsistency are blended in all I do, and now they have
lost me the only person who could help me to conquer them! And now she
is beyond my reach, and I shall never be worthy of her.'

He was much agitated. The sight of James's success, and the return to
his solitary home, had stirred up his feelings very strongly; and he
needed his aunt's