father and I
are great friends--an excellent man but stingy. I had much difficulty in
arranging the eldest girl's marriage with Lord Bolton, and am a trustee
in the settlement. If you feel a preference for Lady Adela, though I
don't think she would suit you so well as Miss Vipont, I will answer
for her father's encouragement and her consent. 'Tis no drawback to you,
though it is to most of her admirers, when I add, 'There's nothing with
her!'"

"And nothing in her! which is worse," said Darrell.

"Still, it is pleasant to gaze on a beautiful landscape, even though the
soil be barren."

COLONEL MORLEY.--"That depends upon whether you are merely the artistic
spectator of the landscape, or the disappointed proprietor of the soil."

"Admirable!" said Darrell; "you have disposed of Lady Adela. So ho! so
ho!" Darrell's horse (his old high-nettled horse, freshly sent to him
from Fawley, and in spite of the five years that had added to its age,
of spirit made friskier by long repose) here put down its ears lashed
out--and indulged in a bound which would have unseated many a London
rider. A young Amazon, followed hard by some two or three young
gentlemen and their grooms, shot by, swift and reckless as a hero
at Balaclava. But With equal suddenness, as she caught sight of
Darrell--whose hand and voice had already soothed the excited nerves of
his steed--the Amazon wheeled round and gained his side. Throwing up her
veil, she revealed a face so prettily arch, so perversely gay--with
eye of radiant hazel, and fair locks half loosened from their
formal braid--that it would have beguiled resentment from the most
insensible--reconciled to danger the most timid. And yet there was
really a grace of humility in the apologies she tendered for her
discourtesy and thoughtlessness. As the girl reined her light palfrey by
Darrell's side-turning from the young companions who had now joined her,
their hackneys in a foam-and devoting to his ear all her lively overflow
of happy spirits, not untempered by a certain deference, but still
apparently free from dissimulation--Daxrell's grand face lighted up--his
mellow laugh, unrestrained, though low, echoed her sportive tones; her
youth, her joyousness were irresistibly contagious. Alban Morley watched
observant, while interchanging talk with her attendant comrades, young
men of high ton, but who belonged to that _jeunesse doree_ with which
the surface of life patrician is fretted over--young men