placed my temper under as accurate a guard as I
could, and observed, "That, for a lady of her good sense and acquired
accomplishments, it was to be regretted that Miss Vernon's manners were
rather blunt and rustic."

"Frank and unreserved, at least, to the extreme," replied Rashleigh:
"yet, trust me, she has an excellent heart. To tell you the truth, should
she continue her extreme aversion to the cloister, and to her destined
husband, and should my own labours in the mine of Plutus promise to
secure me a decent independence, I shall think of reviewing our
acquaintance and sharing it with Miss Vernon."

"With all his fine voice, and well-turned periods," thought I, "this same
Rashleigh Osbaldistone is the ugliest and most conceited coxcomb I ever
met with!"

"But," continued Rashleigh, as if thinking aloud, "I should not like to
supplant Thorncliff."

"Supplant Thorncliff!--Is your brother Thorncliff," I inquired, with
great surprise, "the destined husband of Diana Vernon?"

"Why, ay, her father's commands, and a certain family-contract, destined
her to marry one of Sir Hildebrand's sons. A dispensation has been
obtained from Rome to Diana Vernon to marry _Blank_ Osbaldistone, Esq.,
son of Sir Hildebrand Osbaldistone, of Osbaldistone Hall, Bart., and so
forth; and it only remains to pitch upon the happy man whose name shall
fill the gap in the manuscript. Now, as Percie is seldom sober, my father
pitched on Thorncliff, as the second prop of the family, and therefore
most proper to carry on the line of the Osbaldistones."

"The young lady," said I, forcing myself to assume an air of pleasantry,
which, I believe, became me extremely ill, "would perhaps have been
inclined to look a little lower on the family-tree, for the branch to
which she was desirous of clinging."

"I cannot say," he replied. "There is room for little choice in our
family; Dick is a gambler, John a boor, and Wilfred an ass. I believe my
father really made the best selection for poor Die, after all."

"The present company," said I, "being always excepted."

"Oh, my destination to the church placed me out of the question;
otherwise I will not affect to say, that, qualified by my education both
to instruct and guide Miss Vernon, I might not have been a more
creditable choice than any of my elders."

"And so thought the young lady, doubtless?"

"You are not to suppose so," answered Rashleigh, with an affectation of
denial which was contrived