how indelicate of him to come and press his suit immediately
after news of so distressing a nature had reached Miss Wyndham! How
very impolitic, thought Lord Cashel, to show such a hurry to take
possession of the fortune!--How completely he had destroyed his own
game. And then, other thoughts passed through his mind. His ward had
now one hundred thousand pounds clear, which was, certainly, a great
deal of ready money. Lord Cashel had no younger sons; but his heir,
Lord Kilcullen, was an expensive man, and owed, he did not exactly
know, and was always afraid to ask, how much. He must marry soon, or he
would be sure to go to the devil. He had been living with actresses and
opera-dancers quite long enough for his own respectability; and, if he
ever intended to be such a pattern to the country as his father, it was
now time for him to settle down. And Lord Cashel bethought himself that
if he could persuade his son to marry Fanny Wyndham and pay his debts
with her fortune--(surely he couldn't owe more than a hundred thousand
pounds?)--he would be able to give them a very handsome allowance to
live on.

To do Lord Cashel justice, we must say that he had fully determined
that it was his duty to break off the match between Frank and his ward,
before he heard of the accident which had so enriched her. And Fanny
herself, feeling slighted and neglected--knowing how near to her her
lover was, and that nevertheless he never came to see her--hearing
his name constantly mentioned in connection merely with horses and
jockeys--had been induced to express her acquiescence in her guardian's
views, and to throw poor Frank overboard. In all this the earl had been
actuated by no mercenary views, as far as his own immediate family was
concerned. He had truly and justly thought that Lord Ballindine, with
his limited fortune and dissipated habits, was a bad match for his
ward; and he had, consequently, done his best to break the engagement.
There could, therefore, he thought, be nothing unfair in his taking
advantage of the prudence which he had exercised on her behalf. He
did not know, when he was persuading her to renounce Lord Ballindine,
that, at that moment, her young, rich, and only brother, was lying
at the point of death. He had not done it for his own sake, or Lord
Kilcullen's; there could, therefore, be nothing unjust or ungenerous in
their turning to their own account the two losses, that of her lover
and her brother, which had fall