handsome fortune-hunters and titled _vauriens_; and if in love there
is no wherefore, how can I be sure that she may not fall in love with a
scamp?"

"I think you may be sure of that," said Kenelm. "Miss Travers has too
much mind."

"Yes, at present; but did you not say that in love people go out of
their mind?"

"True! I forgot that."

"I am not then disposed to dismiss poor George's offer with a decided
negative, and yet it would be unfair to mislead him by encouragement. In
fact, I'll be hanged if I know how to reply."

"You think Miss Travers does not dislike George Belvoir, and if she saw
more of him may like him better, and it would be good for her as well as
for him not to put an end to that, chance?"

"Exactly so."

"Why not then write: 'My dear George,--You have my best wishes, but my
daughter does not seem disposed to marry at present. Let me consider
your letter not written, and continue on the same terms as we were
before.' Perhaps, as George knows Virgil, you might find your own
schoolboy recollections of that poet useful here, and add, _Varium et
mutabile semper femina_; hackneyed, but true."

"My dear Chillingly, your suggestion is capital. How the deuce at your
age have you contrived to know the world so well?"

Kenelm answered in the pathetic tones so natural to his voice, "By being
only a looker-on; alas!"

Leopold Travers felt much relieved after he had written his reply
to George. He had not been quite so ingenuous in his revelation to
Chillingly as he may have seemed. Conscious, like all proud and
fond fathers, of his daughter's attractions, he was not without some
apprehension that Kenelm himself might entertain an ambition at variance
with that of George Belvoir: if so, he deemed it well to put an end to
such ambition while yet in time: partly because his interest was already
pledged to George; partly because, in rank and fortune, George was the
better match; partly because George was of the same political party as
himself,--while Sir Peter, and probably Sir Peter's heir, espoused the
opposite side; and partly also because, with all his personal liking to
Kenelm, Leopold Travers, as a very sensible, practical man of the world,
was not sure that a baronet's heir who tramped the country on foot in
the dress of a petty farmer, and indulged pugilistic propensities in
martial encounters with stalwart farriers, was likely to make a safe
husband and a comfortable son-in-law. Kenelm's words