friends to comment as they would upon her conduct.

"You have spoiled all with your precipitation," said the uncle.

"Precipitation! d---n it, what would you have? I have been fifty years
making up my mind to marry; and now when I have not a day to lose, you
talk of precipitation!" answered the lover, throwing himself into an
easy-chair.

"But you have not been fifty years making up your mind to marry my
niece," said Brandon, dryly.

"To be refused, positively refused, by a country girl!" continued
Mauleverer, soliloquizing aloud; "and that too at my age and with all my
experience!--a country girl without rank, _ton_, accomplishments! By
heavens! I don't care if all the world heard it,--for not a soul in the
world will ever believe it."

Brandon sat speechless, eying the mortified face of the courtier with a
malicious complacency, and there was a pause of several minutes. Sir
William then, mastering the strange feeling which made him always rejoice
in whatever threw ridicule on his friend, approached, laid his hand
kindly on Mauleverer's shoulder, and talked to him of comfort and of
encouragement. The reader will believe that Mauleverer was not a man
whom it was impossible to encourage.




CHAPTER XXX.