e.

"Then I advise you to order a new blue coat, and to buy a
wedding-ring."

"Confusion!" cried Frank, stamping his foot; and turning away in a
passion; and then he took up his hat, to rush out of the room, in which
the latter part of the conversation had taken place.

"Stop a minute, Frank," said Blake, "and don't be in a passion. What I
said was only meant to show you how easy I think it is for you to marry
Miss Wyndham if you choose."

"Easy! and every soul at Grey Abbey turned against me, in consequence
of my owning that brute of a horse! I'll go over there at once, and
I'll show Lord Cashel that at any rate he shall not treat me like a
child. As for Kilcullen, if he interferes with me or my name in any
way, I'll--"

"You'll what?--thrash him?"

"Indeed, I'd like nothing better!"

"And then shoot him--be tried by your peers--and perhaps hung; is that
it?"

"Oh, that's nonsense. I don't wish to fight any one, but I am not
going to be insulted."

"I don't think you are: I don't think there's the least chance of
Kilcullen insulting you; he has too much worldly wisdom. But to come
back to Miss Wyndham: if you really mean to marry her, and if, as I
believe, she is really fond of you, Lord Cashel and all the family
can't prevent it. She is probably angry that you have not been over
there; he is probably irate at your staying here, and, not unlikely,
has made use of her own anger to make her think that she has quarrelled
with you; and hence Kilcullen's report."

"And what shall I do now?"

"Nothing to-day, but eat your dinner, and drink your wine. Ride over
to-morrow, see Lord Cashel, and tell him--but do it quite coolly, if
you can--exactly what you have heard, and how you have heard it, and
beg him to assure Lord Kilcullen that he is mistaken in his notion that
the match is off; and beg also that the report may not be repeated. Do
this; and do it as if you were Lord Cashel's equal, not as if you were
his son, or his servant. If you are collected and steady with him for
ten minutes, you'll soon find that he will become bothered and
unsteady."

"That's very easy to say here, but it's not so easy to do there. You
don't know him as I do: he's so sedate, and so slow, and so
dull--especially sitting alone, as he does of a morning, in that large,
dingy, uncomfortable, dusty-looking book-room of his. He measures his
words like senna and salts, and their tone is as disagreeable."

"Then do you drop out yours l