young lord's baseness, and to think how
worthily he had executed his duty as a guardian, in saving Miss Wyndham
from so sordid a suitor. From thinking of his duties as a guardian, his
mind, not unnaturally, recurred to those which were incumbent on him
as a father, and here nothing disturbed his serenity. It is true that,
from an appreciation of the lustre which would reflect back upon
himself from allowing his son to become a decidedly fashionable young
man, he had encouraged him in extravagance, dissipation, and heartless
worldliness; he had brought him up to be supercilious, expensive,
unprincipled, and useless. But then, he was gentlemanlike, dignified,
and sought after; and now, the father reflected, with satisfaction,
that, if he could accomplish his well-conceived scheme, he would pay
his son's debts with his ward's fortune, and, at the same time, tie
him down to some degree of propriety and decorum, by a wife. Lord
Kilcullen, when about to marry, would be obliged to cashier his
opera-dancers and their expensive crews; and, though he might not leave
the turf altogether, when married he would gradually be drawn out of
turf society, and would doubtless become a good steady family nobleman,
like his father. Why, he--Lord Cashel himself--wise, prudent, and
respectable as he was--example as he knew himself to be to all peers,
English, Irish, and Scotch,--had had his horses, and his indiscretions,
when he was young. And then he stroked the calves of his legs, and
smiled grimly; for the memory of his juvenile vices was pleasant to
him.

Lord Cashel thought, as he continued to reflect on the matter, that
Lord Ballindine was certainly a sordid schemer; but that his son was a
young man of whom he had just reason to be proud, and who was worthy
of a wife in the shape of a hundred thousand pounds. And then, he
congratulated himself on being the most anxious of guardians and the
best of fathers; and, with these comfortable reflections, the worthy
peer strutted off, through his ample doors, up his lofty stairs, and
away through his long corridors, to dress for dinner. You might have
heard his boots creaking till he got inside his dressing-room, but you
must have owned that they did so with a most dignified cadence.

It was pleasant enough, certainly, planning all these things; but there
would be some little trouble in executing them. In the first place,
Lord Kilcullen--though a very good son, on the whole, as the father
fre