it ever will.
Such was the case with the Duke at the present moment. Although
there was every opportunity for his daughter and Wilton falling in
love with each other; although there was every reasonable cause
thereunto them moving--youth, and beauty, and warm hearts, and
gratitude, and interesting situations: although there was every
probability that time, place, and circumstance could afford; although
there was every indication, sign, symptom, and appearance, that it was
absolutely the case at that very moment, yet the Duke saw nothing of
it, did not believe it existed, did not imagine that it was likely
ever to exist, and was quite prepared to be astonished, surprised, and
mortified, at whatever period the fact, by the will of fate, should
be forced upon his understanding.
Such was the state of all parties at the time when Laura rose from
the table, and left her father and Wilton alone. Now the bad custom
of men sitting together and drinking immense and detrimental
quantities of various kinds of wine, was at that time at its very
acme; so much so, indeed, that there is more than one recorded
instance, in the years 1695 and 1696, of gentlemen--yes, reader;
actually gentlemen, that is to say, persons who had had every
advantage of birth, for time, and education--killing themselves with
intoxication, exactly in the manner which a noble but most unhappy
bard of our own days has described, in--
--"the Irish peer
Who kill'd himself for love, with wine, last year."
On this subject, however, we shall not dwell, as we may be fated,
perhaps, in the very beginning of the next chapter, to touch upon
some of the other peculiar habits of those days.
Now neither Wilton nor the Duke were at all addicted to the vice we
have mentioned; and Wilton had certainly much stronger attractions in
another room of that house than any that the Duke's cellar could
afford him. The Duke, too, had small inclination usually to sit long
at table; but on the present occasion he had an object in detaining
his young friend in the dining-room after Lady Laura had departed.
Wilton's eyes saw him turn towards him several times, while the
servants were busy about the table, and had, indeed, even during
dinner, remarked a certain sort of restlessness, which he attributed,
and rightly, to an anxiety regarding the plots of the Jacobites, in
which the peer had so nearly involved himself.
At length, when the room was cleared and the door closed, the Duke
drew round his