onour. Yes, I intend her for my wife.'

'Your wife! You are, indeed, premature.'

'Not quite so premature as you perhaps imagine. Know, then, that the
great point is on the eve of achievement. Urged by the information which
Afy thinks she unconsciously obtains from Lachen, and harrowed by the
idea that I am about to tear her from England, she has appealed to the
Duke in a manner to which they were both unused. Hitherto her docile
temper has not permitted her to abuse her empire. Now she exerts
her power with an energy to which he believed her a stranger. He is
staggered by his situation. He at the same time repents having so rashly
engaged the feelings of a woman, and is flattered that he is so loved.
They have more than once consulted upon the expediency of an elopement.'

'This is good news.'

'O! Bertha, you must feel like me before you can estimate it. Yes!'
he clenched his fist with horrible energy, 'there is no hell like a
detested wife!'

They were again silent; but when she thought that his emotion had
subsided, she again recalled their consideration to the object of their
interview.

'You play a bold game, indeed; but it shall not fail from any deficiency
on my part. But how are we to proceed at present? Who is to interest the
feelings of the little Dacre at once?'

'Who but her future husband? What I want you to do is this: we shall
call; but prepare the house to receive us not only as acquaintances, but
as desirable intimates. You know what to say. I have an idea that the
divine creature entertains no very unfavourable opinion of your obedient
slave; and with her temper I care not for what she will not probably
hear, the passing opinion of a third person. I stand at present, thanks
to Afy, very high with the public; and you know, although my life
has not the least altered, that my indiscretions have now a dash
of discretion in them; and a reformed rake, as all agree, is the
personification of morality. Prepare my way with the Dacres, and all
will go right. And as for this Arundel, I know him not; but you have
told me enough to make me consider him the most fortunate of men. As for
love between cousins, I laugh at it. A glance from you will extinguish
the feeble flame, as a sunbeam does a fire: and for the rest, the world
does me the honour to believe that, if Lucius Grafton be remarkable for
one thing more than another, it is for the influence he attains over
young minds. I will get acquainted with th