is no fear of his
marrying her, my dears."

Meanwhile there was a fear that he would lose his chance of marrying
the beautiful Miss Durham.

The dilemmas of little princes are often grave. They should be dwelt on
now and then for an example to poor struggling commoners, of the slings
and arrows assailing fortune's most favoured men, that we may preach
contentment to the wretch who cannot muster wherewithal to marry a
wife, or has done it and trots the streets, pack-laden, to maintain the
dame and troops of children painfully reared to fill subordinate
stations. According to our reading, a moral is always welcome in a
moral country, and especially so when silly envy is to be chastised by
it, the restless craving for change rebuked. Young Sir Willoughby,
then, stood in this dilemma:--a lady was at either hand of him; the
only two that had ever, apart from metropolitan conquests, not to be
recited, touched his emotions. Susceptible to beauty, he had never seen
so beautiful a girl as Constantia Durham. Equally susceptible to
admiration of himself, he considered Laetitia Dale a paragon of
cleverness. He stood between the queenly rose and the modest violet.
One he bowed to; the other bowed to him. He could not have both; it is
the law governing princes and pedestrians alike. But which could he
forfeit? His growing acquaintance with the world taught him to put an
increasing price on the sentiments of Miss Dale. Still Constantia's
beauty was of a kind to send away beholders aching. She had the glory
of the racing cutter full sail on a whining breeze; and she did not
court to win him, she flew. In his more reflective hour the
attractiveness of that lady which held the mirror to his features was
paramount. But he had passionate snatches when the magnetism of the
flyer drew him in her wake. Further to add to the complexity, he loved
his liberty; he was princelier free; he had more subjects, more slaves;
he ruled arrogantly in the world of women; he was more himself. His
metropolitan experiences did not answer to his liking the particular
question, Do we bind the woman down to us idolatrously by making a wife
of her?

In the midst of his deliberations, a report of the hot pursuit of Miss
Durham, casually mentioned to him by Lady Busshe, drew an immediate
proposal from Sir Willoughby. She accepted him, and they were engaged.
She had been nibbled at, all but eaten up, while he hung dubitative;
and though that was the cause of hi