te, whose love he may reward with munificent
jointure, to whose child he may bequeath the name that has now no
successor, and the wealth he has no heart to spend?"

Colonel Morley--who, as we know, is by habit a matchmaker, and likes the
vocation--assumes a placid but cogitative mien, rubs his brow gently,
and says in his softest, best-bred accents, "You would not marry a mere
girl? some one of suitable age. I know several most superior young
women on the other side of thirty, Wilhelmina Prymme, for instance, or
Janet--"

DARRELL.--"Old maids. No! decidedly no!"

COLONEL MORLEY (suspiciously).--"But you would not risk the peace
of your old age with a girl of eighteen, or else I do know a very
accomplished, well-brought-up girl; just eighteen, who--"

DARRELL.--"Re-enter life by the side of Eighteen! am I a madman?"

COLONEL MORLEY.--"Neither old maids nor young maids; the choice becomes
narrowed. You would prefer a widow. Ha! I have thought of one; a prize,
indeed, could you but win her, the widow of--"

DARRELL.--"Ephesus!--Bah! suggest no widow to me. A widow, with her
affections buried in the grave!"

MORLEY.--"Not necessarily. And in this case--"

DARRELL (interrupting, and with warmth).--"In every case I tell you: no
widow shall doff her weeds for me. Did she love the first man? Fickle
is the woman who can love twice. Did she not love him? Why did she marry
him? Perhaps she sold herself to a rent-roll? Shall she sell herself
again to me for a jointure? Heaven forbid! Talk not of widows. No dainty
so flavourless as a heart warmed up again."

COLONEL MORLEY.--"Neither maids, be they old or young, nor widows.
Possibly you want an angel. London is not the place for angels."

DARRELL.--"I grant that the choice seems involved in perplexity. How
can it be otherwise if one's self is perplexed? And yet, Alban, I
am serious; and I do not presume to be so exacting as my words have
implied. I ask not fortune, nor rank beyond gentle blood, nor youth nor
beauty nor accomplishments nor fashion, but I do ask one thing, and one
thing only."

COLONEL MORLEY.--"What is that? you have left nothing worth the having
to ask for."

DARRELL.--"Nothing! I have left all! I ask some one whom I can love;
love better than all the world,--not the _mariage de convenance_, not
the _mariage de raison_, but the _mariage d'amour_. All other marriage,
with vows of love so solemn, with intimacy of commune so close,--all
other marriage, i