ifferently about all this."

"Ah, but don't you think you had better speak to him before you quite
make up your mind? He is your son, you know; and an uncommon clever
fellow too. He'll know how to say all this much better than I do."

"Say what, Mr. Orme?"

"Why, of course you can't expect that anybody will like such a
marriage as this;--that is, anybody except you and Sir Peregrine."

"Your mother does not object to it."

"My mother! But you don't know my mother yet. She would not object to
have her head cut off if anybody wanted it that she cared about. I
do not know how it has all been managed, but I suppose Sir Peregrine
asked her. Then of course she would not object. But look at the
common sense of it, Lady Mason. What does the world always say when
an old man like my grandfather marries a young woman?"

"But I am not--." So far she got, and then she stopped herself.

"We have all liked you very much. I'm sure I have for one; and I'll
go in for you, heart and soul, in this shameful law business. When
Lucius asked me, I didn't think anything of going to that scoundrel
in Hamworth; and all along I've been delighted that Sir Peregrine
took it up. By heavens! I'd be glad to go down to Yorkshire myself,
and walk into that fellow that wants to do you this injury. I would
indeed; and I'll stand by you as strong as anybody. But, Lady Mason,
when it comes to one's grandfather marrying, it--it--it--. Think what
people in the county will say of him. If it was your father, and if
he had been at the top of the tree all his life, how would you like
to see him get a fall, and be laughed at as though he were in the mud
just when he was too old ever to get up again?"

I am not sure whether Lucius Mason, with all his cleverness, could
have put the matter much better, or have used a style of oratory more
efficacious to the end in view. Peregrine had drawn his picture with
a coarse pencil, but he had drawn it strongly, and with graphic
effect. And then he paused; not with self-confidence, or as giving
his companion time to see how great had been his art, but in want of
words, and somewhat confused by the strength of his own thoughts. So
he got up and poked the fire, turning his back to it, and then sat
down again. "It is such a deuce of a thing, Lady Mason," he said,
"that you must not be angry with me for speaking out."

"Oh, Mr. Orme, I am not angry, and I do not know what to say to you."

"Why don't you speak to Lucius?"