ersation had taken place in the Greshamsbury gardens,
in which nothing light had been allowed to present itself; nothing
frivolous had been spoken. The countess, the Lady Arabella, and Miss
Gresham had been talking over Greshamsbury affairs, and they had
latterly been assisted by the Lady Amelia, than whom no de Courcy
ever born was more wise, more solemn, more prudent, or more proud.
The ponderosity of her qualifications for nobility was sometimes too
much even for her mother, and her devotion to the peerage was such,
that she would certainly have declined a seat in heaven if offered to
her without the promise that it should be in the upper house.

The subject first discussed had been Augusta's prospects. Mr Moffat
had been invited to Courcy Castle, and Augusta had been taken thither
to meet him, with the express intention on the part of the countess,
that they should be man and wife. The countess had been careful to
make it intelligible to her sister-in-law and niece, that though Mr
Moffat would do excellently well for a daughter of Greshamsbury, he
could not be allowed to raise his eyes to a female scion of Courcy
Castle.

"Not that we personally dislike him," said the Lady Amelia; "but rank
has its drawbacks, Augusta." As the Lady Amelia was now somewhat
nearer forty than thirty, and was still allowed to walk,

"In maiden meditation, fancy free,"

it may be presumed that in her case rank had been found to have
serious drawbacks.

To this Augusta said nothing in objection. Whether desirable by a
de Courcy or not, the match was to be hers, and there was no doubt
whatever as to the wealth of the man whose name she was to take; the
offer had been made, not to her, but to her aunt; the acceptance
had been expressed, not by her, but by her aunt. Had she thought of
recapitulating in her memory all that had ever passed between Mr
Moffat and herself, she would have found that it did not amount to
more than the most ordinary conversation between chance partners
in a ball-room. Nevertheless, she was to be Mrs Moffat. All that Mr
Gresham knew of him was, that when he met the young man for the first
and only time in his life, he found him extremely hard to deal with
in the matter of money. He had insisted on having ten thousand pounds
with his wife, and at last refused to go on with the match unless
he got six thousand pounds. This latter sum the poor squire had
undertaken to pay him.

Mr Moffat had been for a yea