lutely impossible--I won't
believe it!"

"That's right, Doctor; who is it that says 'And still believe the story
false that _ought_ not to be true? I admire your candour, and wish I
could imitate it."

"Then your Ladyship really believes it. 'Pon my soul, I--I--it's really a
very vexatious affair. I feel for Lady Juliana, poor woman! No wonder
she's hysterical-five and twenty thousand a year refused! What is it she
would have? The finest deer park in Scotland! Every sort of game upon
the estate! A salmon fishing at the very door!--I should just like to
know what _is_ the meaning of it?"

"Cannot you guess, Doctor" asked Lady Emily.

"Guess! No, 'pon my soul! I defy any man to guess what could tempt a
woman to refuse five and twenty thousand a year; unless, indeed, she has
something higher in view, and even then she should be pretty sure of her
mark. But I suppose, because Miss Adelaide has got a Duke, she thinks
she must have one too. I suppose that's the story; but I can tell her
Dukes are not so plenty; and she's by no means so fine a woman as her
sister, and her market's spoilt, or I'm much mistaken. What man in his
senses would ever ask a woman who had been such an idiot as to refuse
five and twenty thousand a year?"

"I see, Doctor, you are quite a novice in the tender passion. Cannot you
make allowance for it: a young lady's not being in love?"

"In what?" demanded the Doctor.

"In love," repeated Lady Emily.

"Love! Bah--nonsense--no mortal in their senses ever thinks of such
stuff now."

"Then you think love and madness are one and the same thing, it seems?"

"I think the man or woman who could let their love stand in the way of
five and twenty thousand a year is the next thing to being mad," said
the Doctor warmly; "and in this case I can see no difference."

"But you'll allow there are some sorts of love that may be indulged
without casting any shade upon the understanding?"

"I really can't tell what your Ladyship means," said the Doctor
impatiently.

"I mean, for example, the love one may feel towards a turtle, such as we
had lately."

"That's quite a different thing," interrupted the Doctor.

"Pardon me, but whatever the consequence may be, the effects in both
cases were very similar, as exemplified in yourself. Pray, what
difference did it make to your friends, who were deprived of your
society, whether you spent your time in walking with 'even step, and
musing gait,' before your Dulcin