our own Flory is not ungrateful."

"I won't hear."

"Stop--listen to reason. You are not rich--you are entitled but to a
small pension if you ever resign office, and your official salary, I
have often heard you say, does not prevent you from being embarrassed.
To whom should a daughter give from her superfluities but to a
parent?--from whom should a parent receive, but from a child, who can
never repay his love?--Ah, this is nothing; but you--you who have never
crossed her lightest whim--do not you destroy all the hopes of happiness
your Florence can ever form."

Florence wept, and Lord Saxingham, who was greatly moved, let fall a few
tears also. Perhaps it is too much to say that the pecuniary part of the
proffered arrangement entirely won him over; but still the way it was
introduced softened his heart. He possibly thought that it was better to
have a good and grateful daughter in a country gentleman's wife, than a
sullen and thankless one in a duchess. However that may be, certain it
is, that before Lord Saxingham began his toilet, he promised to make no
obstacle to the marriage, and all he asked in return was, that at least
three months (but that, indeed, the lawyers would require) should elapse
before it took place; and on this understanding Florence left him,
radiant and joyous as Flora herself, when the sun of spring makes the
world a garden. Never had she thought so little of her beauty, and never
had it seemed so glorious, as that happy evening. But Maltravers was
pale and thoughtful, and Florence in vain sought his eyes during the
dinner, which seemed to her insufferably long. Afterwards, however,
they met and conversed apart the rest of the evening; and the beauty of
Florence began to produce upon Ernest's heart its natural effect; and
that evening--ah, how Florence treasured the remembrance of every hour,
every minute of its annals!

It would have been amusing to witness the short conversation between
Lord Saxingham and Maltravers, when the latter sought the earl at night
in his lordship's room. To Lord Saxingham's surprise, not a word did
Maltravers utter of his own subordinate pretensions to Lady Florence's
hand. Coldly, drily, and almost haughtily, did he make the formal
proposals, "as if [as Lord Saxingham afterwards said to Ferrers] the
man were doing me the highest possible honour in taking my daughter, the
beauty of London, with fifty thousand a year, off my hands." But this
was quite Maltravers!-