So Lady Blandish thought, and so said her soft, deep-eyed smile, as she perused the ground while listening to the project.

It concerned Richard's nuptials.

He was now nearly eighteen.

He was to marry when he was five-and-twenty.

Meantime a young lady, some years his junior, was to be sought for in the homes of England, who would be every way fitted by education, instincts, and blood--on each of which qualifications Sir Austin unreservedly enlarged--to espouse so perfect a youth and accept the honourable duty of assisting in the perpetuation of the Feverels.