the beauty of
holiness. But don't overdo the thing either. Just assume the part of a
young person on whose mind the truth is beginning to open, because Lucy
knows now very well that these rapid transitions are suspicious. At all
events, you will do the best you can; and if you are here to-morrow--say
about three o'clock--she will see you.

"Ever, my dear Dunroe,

"Faithfully, your father-in-law that is to be,

"Thomas Gourlay."

This precious epistle Dunroe found upon his table after returning from
his ride in the Phoenix Park; and having perused it, he immediately
rang for Norton, from whom he thought it was much too good a thing to be
concealed.

"Norton," said he, "I am beginning to think that this black fellow, the
baronet, is not such a disgraceful old scoundrel as I had thought him.
There's not a bad thing in its way--read it."

Norton, after throwing his eye over it, laughed heartily.

"Egad," said he, "that fellow has a pretty knowledge of life; but it is
well he recovered himself in the instructions, for, from all that I
have heard of Miss Gourlay, his first code would have ruined you, sure
enough."

"I am afraid I will break down, however, in the hypocrisy. I failed
cursedly with the old peer, and am not likely to be more successful with
her."

"Indeed, I question whether hypocrisy would sit well upon one who has
been so undisguised an offender. The very assumption of it requires some
training. I think a work to be called 'Preparations for Hypocrisy' would
be a great book to the general mass of mankind. You cannot bound at one
step from the licentious to the hypocritical, unless, indeed, upon the
convenient principle of instantaneous conversion. The thing must be done
decently, and by judicious gradations, nor is the transition attended
with much difficulty, in consequence of the natural tendency which
hypocrisy and profligacy always have to meet. Still, I think you ought
to attempt the thing. Get by heart, as her father advises, half-a-dozen
serious texts of Scripture, and drop one in now and then, such as, 'All
flesh is grass.' 'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.' 'He that
marrieth not doth well, but he that marrieth doth better.' To be sure,
there is a slight inversion of text here, but then it is made more
appropriate."

"None of these texts, however," replied his lordship, "except the last,
are applicable to marriage."

"So much the better; that will show her that you can think