“Good bye, Adolphus; may we both be happier
when next we meet,” said she.
“My happiness, I fear, is doubtful: but
I will not speak of that now. If I can do anything
for yours before I go, I will. Fanny, I will ask
my father to invite Lord Ballindine here. He has
been anxious that we should be married: when
I tell him that that is impossible, he may perhaps
be induced to do so.”
“Do that,” said Fanny, “and you
will be a friend to me. Do that, and you will
be more than a brother to me.”
“I will; and in doing so I shall crush every
hope that I have had left in me.”
“Do not say so, Adolphus:—do not—”
“You’ll understand what I mean in a short
time. I cannot explain everything to you now.
But this will I do; I will make Lord Cashel understand
that we never can be more to each other than we are
now, and I will advise him to seek a reconciliation
with Lord Ballindine. And now, good bye,”
and he held out his hand.
“But I shall see you to-morrow.”
“Probably not; and if you do, it will be but
for a moment, when I shall have other adieux to make.”
“Good bye, then, Adolphus; and may God bless
you; and may we yet live to have many happy days together,”
and she shook hands with him, and went to her room.
Lord Cashel’s plans were certainly not lucky.
It was not that sufficient care was not used in laying
them, nor sufficient caution displayed in maturing
them. He passed his time in care and caution;
he spared no pains in seeing that the whole machinery
was right; he was indefatigable in deliberation, diligent
in manoeuvring, constant in attention. But, somehow,
he was unlucky; his schemes were never successful.
In the present instance he was peculiarly unfortunate,
for everything went wrong with him. He had got
rid of an obnoxious lover, he had coaxed over his
son, he had spent an immensity of money, he had undergone
worlds of trouble and self-restraint;—and
then, when he really began to think that his ward’s
fortune would compensate him for this, his own family
came to him, one after another, to assure him that
he was completely mistaken—that it was utterly
impossible that such a thing as a family marriage
between the two cousins could never take place, and
indeed, ought not to be thought of.
Lady Selina gave him the first check. On the
morning on which Lord Kilcullen made his offer, she
paid her father a solemn visit in his book-room, and
told him exactly what she had before told her mother;
assured him that Fanny could not be induced, at any
rate at present, to receive her cousin as her lover;
whispered to him, with unfeigned sorrow and shame,
that Fanny was still madly in love with Lord Ballindine;
and begged him to induce her brother to postpone his
offer, at any rate for some months.
“I hate Lord Ballindine’s very name,”
said the earl, petulant with irritation.
