you both combine
to be just and generous together to your children. There is a model
settlement! and there are your instructions to Pringle of Pitt Street!
Can you do it by yourself? No; of course you can't. Now don't be
slovenly-minded! See the points in their order as they come. You are
going to be married; you state to whom, you add that I am the lady's
guardian; you give the name and address of my lawyer in Edinburgh; you
write your instructions plainly in the fewest words, and leave details
to your legal adviser; you refer the lawyers to each other; you request
that the draft settlements be prepared as speedily as possible, and you
give your address at this house. There are the heads. Can't you do it
now? Oh, the rising generation! Oh, the progress we are making in these
enlightened modern times! There! there! you can marry Blanche, and make
her happy, and increase the population--and all without knowing how
to write the English language. One can only say with the learned
Bevorskius, looking out of his window at the illimitable loves of the
sparrows, 'How merciful is Heaven to its creatures!' Take up the pen.
I'll dictate! I'll dictate!"

Sir Patrick read the letter over, approved of it, and saw it safe in the
box for the post. This done, he peremptorily forbade Arnold to speak to
his niece on the subject of the marriage without his express permission.
"There's somebody else's consent to be got," he said, "besides Blanche's
consent and mine."

"Lady Lundie?"

"Lady Lundie. Strictly speaking, I am the only authority. But my
sister-in-law is Blanche's step-mother, and she is appointed guardian in
the event of my death. She has a right to be consulted--in courtesy, if
not in law. Would you like to do it?"

Arnold's face fell. He looked at Sir Patrick in silent dismay.

"What! you can't even speak to such a perfectly pliable person as Lady
Lundie? You may have been a very useful fellow at sea. A more helpless
young man I never met with on shore. Get out with you into the garden
among the other sparrows! Somebody must confront her ladyship. And if
you won't--I must."

He pushed Arnold out of the library, and applied meditatively to the
knob of his cane. His gayety disappeared, now that he was alone. His
experience of Lady Lundie's character told him that, in attempting to
win her approval to any scheme for hurrying Blanche's marriage, he was
undertaking no easy task. "I suppose," mused Sir Patrick, thinking of
h