least suspect--the antithesis to themselves. Yet is it
possible that Flora Vyvyan can have carried her crotchets to
so extravagant a degree as to have designed the conquest of
Guy Darrell--ten years older than her own father? She, too, an
heiress--certainly not mercenary; she who had already refused better
worldly matches than Darrell himself was--young men, handsome men,
with coronets on the margin of their note-paper and the panels of their
broughams! The idea seemed preposterous; nevertheless, Alban Morley, a
shrewd observer, conceived that idea, and trembled for his friend.

At last the young lady and her satellites shot off, and the Colonel said
cautiously, "Miss Vyvyan is--alarming."

DARRELL.--"Alarming! the epithet requires construing."

COLONEL MORLEY.--"The sort of girl who might make a man of our years
really and literally an old fool!"

DARRELL.--"Old fool such a man must be if girls of any sort are
permitted to make him a greater fool than he was before. But I think
that, with those pretty hands resting on one's arm-chair, or that sunny
face shining into one's study windows, one might be a very happy old
fool--and that is the most one can expect!"

COLONEL MORLEY (checking an anxious groan).--"I am afraid, my poor
friend, you are far gone already. No wonder Honoria Vipont fails to
be appreciated. But Lady Selina has a maxim--the truth of which my
experience attests--'the moment it comes to woman, the most sensible men
are the'--"

"Oldest fools!" put in Darrell. "If Mark Antony made such a goose of
himself for that painted harridan Cleopatra, what would he have done
for a blooming Juliet! Youth and high spirit! Alas! why are these to
be unsuitable companions for us, as we reach that climax in time and
sorrow--when to the one we are grown the most indulgent, and of the
other have the most need? Alban, that girl, if her heart were really
won--her wild nature wisely mastered, gently guided--would make a true,
prudent, loving, admirable wife--"

"Heavens!" cried Alban Morley.

"To such a husband," pursued Darrell, unheeding the ejaculation,
"as--Lionel Haughton. What say you?" "Lionel--oh, I have no objection
at all to that; but he's too young yet to think of marriage--a mere boy.
Besides, if you yourself marry, Lionel could scarcely aspire to a girl
of Miss Vyvyan's birth and fortune."

"Ho, not aspire! That boy at least shall not have to woo in vain from
the want of fortune. The day I marry--if ev