attache_.

So the young man had seen various Courts, and improved his French and
German; and at nearly thirty years of age he had begun to think that it
was time to take another step in life.

This idea was strengthened by a short conversation with his father. He
had paid a visit to Lastingham with the double object of attending the
marriage of one of his sisters, and of trying to persuade the Earl to
pay some inconvenient debts. But the moment he mentioned, with due
caution, this second reason for his arrival, he found it a hopeless
cause. He represented that his income was small, and his prospects of
advancement extremely slender.

"Marry," said the Earl.

"Thank you. I would rather not. I want to get rid of my incumbrances,
not to increase them."

"Marry," repeated the Earl.

"But whom?" asked his son, staggered by this oracular response.

"Miss Drummond."

"She's fifty, at least."

"And has a hundred thousand pounds."

"She would not have me."

"You are growing modest."

"Not in that respect. She has refused half-a-dozen offers every season
for the last twenty years."

"Miss Pelham?"

"What would be the use of that?"

"Family interest."

"Too many sons in the way."

"Lady Adeliza Weymouth?"

Percy made a slight grimace.

"She is a year older than I am, and has a red nose; otherwise----"

"You had better think of it, at any rate," said the Earl, "and try if
she will have you. Depend upon it, a sensible marriage is the best thing
for you."

On which advice the son had dutifully acted. Fortune favoured him so far
as to give him opportunities of cultivating the good graces of Lady
Adeliza, and matters appeared to be going on prosperously. It seemed,
however, that either the gentleman found wooing in earnest to be a more
fatiguing business than he had anticipated, or he thought that a short
absence might increase the chances in his favour, for on the slightest
possible pretence of being sent out by Government he started off one day
for Canada.

Now, when Lord Lastingham had spoken so wisely about a sensible
marriage, he had been drawing lessons from his own experience. The late
Countess had been a very charming woman, of good family, but, like her
daughters, "sans dot;" and the infatuation which caused so imprudent a
connection not having lasted beyond the first year of matrimony, the
Earl had had plenty of time to repent and to calculate, over and over
again, how different the fortunes of