I have received your letter, and am truly delighted to hear that dear Violet has accepted you as her husband.  Her fortune will be very material to you, but she herself is better than any fortune.  You have long known my opinion of her.  I shall be proud to welcome her as a daughter to my house.

I shall of course write to her immediately, and will endeavour to settle some early day for her coming here.  When I have done so, I will write to you again, and can only say that I will endeavour to make Saulsby comfortable to you.

   Your affectionate father,

   BRENTFORD.

   Richards, the groom, is still here.  You had perhaps better write to
   him direct about your horses.

By the middle of February arrangements had all been made, and Violet met her lover at his father’s house.  She in the meantime had been with her aunt, and had undergone a good deal of mild unceasing persecution.  “My dear Violet,” said her aunt to her on her arrival at Baddingham, speaking with a solemnity that ought to have been terrible to the young lady, “I do not know what to say to you.”

“Say ‘how d’you do?’ aunt,” said Violet.

“I mean about this engagement,” said Lady Baldock, with an increase of awe-inspiring severity in her voice.

“Say nothing about it at all, if you don’t like it,” said Violet.

“How can I say nothing about it?  How can I be silent?  Or how am I to congratulate you?”

“The least said, perhaps, the soonest mended,” and Violet smiled as she spoke.

“That is very well, and if I had no duty to perform, I would be silent.  But, Violet, you have been left in my charge.  If I see you shipwrecked in life, I shall ever tell myself that the fault has been partly mine.”

“Nay, aunt, that will be quite unnecessary.  I will always admit that you did everything in your power to—­to—­to—­make me run straight, as the sporting men say.”

“Sporting men!  Oh, Violet.”

“And you know, aunt, I still hope that I shall be found to have kept on the right side of the posts.  You will find that poor Lord Chiltern is not so black as he is painted.”

“But why take anybody that is black at all?”

“I like a little shade in the picture, aunt.”

“Look at Lord Fawn.”

“I have looked at him.”

“A young nobleman beginning a career of useful official life, that will end in—­; there is no knowing what it may end in.”

“I daresay not;—­but it never could have begun or ended in my being Lady Fawn.”

“And Mr. Appledom!”

“Poor Mr. Appledom.  I do like Mr. Appledom.  But, you see, aunt, I like Lord Chiltern so much better.  A young woman will go by her feelings.”

“And yet you refused him a dozen times.”

“I never counted the times, aunt; but not quite so many as that.”