to a dairymaid this
morning, and I wanted to know whether it held in law."

It was amusing to watch the manly coolness with which the announcement
was taken. Nothing was heard more energetic than, "Deuce he has!" and, "A
dairymaid!"

"I thought it better to let the ladies dine in peace," Adrian continued.
"I wanted to be able to console my aunt"--

"Well, but--well, but," the old gentleman, much the most excited,
puffed--"eh, Brandon? He's a boy, this young ass! Do you mean to tell me
a boy can go and marry when he pleases, and any troll he pleases, and the
marriage is good? If I thought that I'd turn every woman off my premises.
I would! from the housekeeper to the scullery-maid. I'd have no woman
near him till--till"--

"Till the young greenhorn was grey, sir?" suggested Brandon.

"Till he knew what women are made of, sir!" the old gentleman finished
his sentence vehemently. "What, d'ye think, will Feverel say to it, Mr.
Adrian?"

"He has been trying the very System you have proposed sir--one that does
not reckon on the powerful action of curiosity on the juvenile
intelligence. I'm afraid it's the very worst way of solving the problem."

"Of course it is," said Clarence. "None but a fool!"--

"At your age," Adrian relieved his embarrassment, "it is natural, my dear
Clarence, that you should consider the idea of an isolated or imprisoned
manhood something monstrous, and we do not expect you to see what amount
of wisdom it contains. You follow one extreme, and we the other. I don't
say that a middle course exists. The history of mankind shows our painful
efforts to find one, but they have invariably resolved themselves into
asceticism, or laxity, acting and reacting. The moral question is, if a
naughty little man, by reason of his naughtiness, releases himself from
foolishness, does a foolish little man, by reason of his foolishness,
save himself from naughtiness?"

A discussion, peculiar to men of the world, succeeded the laugh at Mr.
Clarence. Then coffee was handed round and the footman informed Adrian,
in a low voice, that Mrs. Doria Forey particularly wished to speak with
him. Adrian preferred not to go in alone. "Very well," he said, and
sipped his coffee. They talked on, sounding the depths of law in Brandon
Forey, and receiving nought but hollow echoes from that profound cavity.
He would not affirm that the marriage was invalid: he would not affirm
that it could not be annulled. He thought not: still