here was plenty of money, and,
let affairs go as they might, there would be no broken heart. But
that perseverance in love of which Mr. Spooner intended to make
himself so bright an example does require some courage. The Adelaide
Pallisers of the world have a way of making themselves uncommonly
unpleasant to a man when they refuse him for the third or fourth
time. They allow themselves sometimes to express a contempt which is
almost akin to disgust, and to speak to a lover as though he were no
better than a footman. And then the lover is bound to bear it all,
and when he has borne it, finds it so very difficult to get out of
the room. Mr. Spooner had some idea of all this as his cousin drove
him up to the door, at what he then thought a very fast pace. "D----
it all," he said, "you needn't have brought them up so confoundedly
hot." But it was not of the horses that he was really thinking, but
of the colour of his own nose. There was something working within
him which had flurried him, in spite of the tranquillity of his idle
seat.

Not the less did he spring out of the phaeton with a quite youthful
jump. It was well that every one about Harrington Hall should know
how alert he was on his legs; a little weather-beaten about the face
he might be; but he could get in and out of his saddle as quickly
as Gerard Maule even yet; and for a short distance would run Gerard
Maule for a ten-pound note. He dashed briskly up to the door, and
rang the bell as though he feared neither Adelaide nor Lord Chiltern
any more than he did his own servants at Spoon Hall. "Was Miss
Palliser at home?" The maid-servant who opened the door told him that
Miss Palliser was at home, with a celerity which he certainly had
not expected. The male members of the establishment were probably
disporting themselves in the absence of their master and mistress,
and Adelaide Palliser was thus left to the insufficient guardianship
of young women who were altogether without discretion. "Yes, sir;
Miss Palliser is at home." So said the indiscreet female, and Mr.
Spooner was for the moment confounded by his own success. He had
hardly told himself what reception he had expected, or whether, in
the event of the servant informing him at the front door that the
young lady was not at home he would make any further immediate effort
to prolong the siege so as to force an entry; but now, when he had
carried the very fortress by surprise, his heart almost misgave him.
He