Even to you, my mother, I can not delegate my choice of a wife." "I will never receive Harriet Hunsden!" Lady Kingsland passionately cried.
"Perhaps you will never have the opportunity.

She may prefer to become mistress of Strathmore Castle.

Lord Ernest is her most devoted adorer.
I have not asked her yet.

The chances are a thousand to one she will refuse when I do." His mother laughed scornfully, but her eyes were ablaze.
"You mean to ask her, then ?" "Most assuredly." She laughed again--a bitter, mirthless laugh.
"We go fast, my friend! And you have hardly known this divinity four-and-twenty hours." "Love is not a plant of slow growth.

Like Jonah's gourd, it springs up, fully matured, in an hour." "Does it?
My son is better versed in amatory floriculture than I am.
But before you ask Miss Hunsden to become Lady Kingsland, had you not better inquire who her mother was ?" The baronet thought of the letter, and turned very pale.
"Her mother?
I do not understand.