’Well, now, that’s very extraordinary, in the style in which she has been brought up; yet books and all that are so fashionable now, that it’s very natural,’ said Lady Clonbrony.

About this time, Mr. Berryl, Lord Colambre’s Cambridge friend, for whom his lordship had fought the battle of the curricle with Mordicai, came to town.  Lord Colambre introduced him to his mother, by whom he was graciously received; for Mr. Berryl was a young gentleman of good figure, good address, good family, heir to a good fortune, and in every respect a fit match for Miss Nugent.  Lady Clonbrony thought that it would be wise to secure him for her niece before he should make his appearance in the London world, where mothers and daughters would soon make him feel his own consequence.  Mr. Berryl, as Lord Colambre’s intimate friend, was admitted to the private evening parties at Lady Clonbrony’s, and he contributed to render them still more agreeable.  His information, his habits of thinking, and his views, were all totally different from Mr. Salisbury’s; and their collision continually struck out that sparkling novelty which pleases peculiarly in conversation.  Mr. Berryl’s education, disposition, and tastes, fitted him exactly for the station which he was destined to fill in society—­that of a country gentleman; not meaning by that expression a mere eating, drinking, hunting, shooting, ignorant country squire of the old race, which is now nearly extinct; but a cultivated, enlightened, independent English country gentleman—­the happiest, perhaps, of human beings.  On the comparative felicity of the town and country life; on the dignity, utility, elegance, and interesting nature of their different occupations, and general scheme of passing their time, Mr. Berryl and Mr. Salisbury had one evening a playful, entertaining, and, perhaps, instructive conversation; each party, at the end, remaining, as frequently happens, of their own opinion.  It was observed that Miss Broadhurst ably and warmly defended Mr. Berryl’s side of the question; and in their views, plans, and estimates of life, there appeared a remarkable, and as Lord Colambre thought, a happy coincidence.  When she was at last called upon to give her decisive judgment between a town and a country life, she declared that ’if she were condemned to the extremes of either, she should prefer a country life, as much as she should prefer Robinson Crusoe’s diary to the journal of the idle man in the spectator.’

’Lord bless me!  Mrs. Broadhurst, do you hear what your daughter is saying?’ cried Lady Clonbrony, who, from the card-table, lent an attentive ear to all that was going forward.  ’Is it possible that Miss Broadhurst, with her fortune, and pretensions, and sense, can really be serious in saying she would be content to live in the country?’

‘What’s that you say, child, about living in the country?’ said Mrs. Broadhurst.

Miss Broadhurst repeated what she had said.