you, I could have married Lord Glenallan well
enough. He is handsome, good-natured, and rich; and though 'he is but a
Lord, and nothing but a Lord,' still there is a dash and bustle in
twenty thousand a year that takes off from the ennui of a dull
companion. With five hundred a year, I grant you, he would be
execrable."

"Then I shall never marry a man with twenty thousand a year whom I would
not have with five hundred."

"In short, you are to marry for love--that's the old story, which, with
all your wisdom, you wise, well-educated girls always end in. Where
shall I find a hero upon five hundred a year for you? Of course he must
be virtuous, noble, dignified, handsome, brave, witty. What would you
think of Charles Lennox?"

Mary coloured. "After what passed, I would not marry Colonel Lennox;
no"--affecting to smile--"not if he were to ask me, which is certainly
the most unlikely of all things."

"Ah! true, I had forgot that scrape. No, that won't do; it certainly
would be most pitiful in you, after what passed. Well, I don't know
what's to be done with you. There's nothing for it but that you should
take Lord Glenallan, with all his imperfections on his head; and, after
all, I really see nothing that he wants but a little more brain, and as
you'll have the managing of him you can easily supply that deficiency."

"Indeed," answered Mary, "I find I have quite little enough for myself,
and I have no genius whatever for managing. I shall therefore never
marry, unless I marry a man on whose judgment I could rely for advice
and assistance, and for whom I could feel a certain deference that I
consider due from a wife to her husband."

"I see what you would be at," said Lady Emily; "you mean to model
yourself upon the behaviour of Mrs. Tooley, who has such a deference for
the judgment of her better half, that she consults him even about the
tying of her shoes, and would not presume to give her child a few grains
of magnesia without this full and unqualified approbation. Now I flatter
myself my husband and I shall have a more equitable division; for,
though man is a reasonable being, he shall know and own that woman is so
too--sometimes. All things that men ought to know better I shall yield;
whatever may belong to either sex, I either seize upon as my
prerogative, or scrupulously divide; for which reason I should like the
profession of my husband to be something in which I could not possibly
interfere. How difficult mu