ly
would be too cruel! And Lady Scroope could not but feel the injustice of
it. Every thing was being done for this heir, for whom nothing need have
been done. He was treated as a son, but he was not a son. He was treated
with exceptional favour as a son. Everything was at his disposal. He
might marry and begin life at once with every want amply supplied, if
he would only marry such a woman as was fit to be a future Countess of
Scroope. Very little was required from him. He was not expected to marry
an heiress. An heiress indeed was prepared for him, and would be there,
ready for him at Christmas,--an heiress, beautiful, well-born, fit in
every respect,--religious too. But he was not to be asked to marry
Sophie Mellerby. He might choose for himself. There were other well-born
young women about the world,--duchesses' granddaughters in abundance!
But it was imperative that he should marry at least a lady, and at least
a Protestant.

Lady Scroope felt very strongly that he should never have been allowed
to rejoin his regiment, when a home at Scroope was offered to him. He
was a free agent of course, and equally of course the title and the
property must ultimately be his. But something of a bargain might have
been made with him when all the privileges of a son were offered to him.
When he was told that he might have all Scroope to himself,--for it
amounted nearly to that; that he might hunt there and shoot there and
entertain his friends; that the family house in London should be given
up to him if he would marry properly; that an income almost without
limit should be provided for him, surely it would not have been too much
to demand that as a matter of course he should leave the army! But this
had not been done; and now there was an Irish Roman Catholic widow with
a daughter, with seal-shooting and a boat and high cliffs right in the
young man's way! Lady Scroope could not analyse it, but felt all the
danger as though it were by instinct. Partridge and pheasant shooting
on a gentleman's own grounds, and an occasional day's hunting with the
hounds in his own county, were, in Lady Scroope's estimation, becoming
amusements for an English gentleman. They did not interfere with the
exercise of his duties. She had by no means brought herself to like the
yearly raids into Scotland made latterly by sportsmen. But if Scotch
moors and forests were dangerous, what were Irish cliffs! Deer-stalking
was bad in her imagination. She was a