rest in his well-being of the kindest description; and he was thence led to consider that "perhaps her own narrow income and pecuniary difficulties had alone induced her to fear such a fate for her daughter, and occasioned her refusal of Arthur, and that the reports which had been made about her seeking to marry Georgiana to the Marquess of Wentworthdale were mere idle fabrications."
Though taciturn, from partaking the manners of those with whom he had recently lived, and naturally too modest to do justice to his own conversational powers, yet, when he reached the dear home of his in fancy, he could talk freely of all that he had lately seen or even thought, and his representations of Lady Anne, to a considerable degree, ameliorated their feelings towards her, and they thought most probably she had changed her mind, and would not be long before she gave some farther intimation of it.
"I well remember when Lord Rotheles was a young man (and a very engaging one he was), that he was much given to running from one opinion or predilection to another. 'Unstable as water, thou shalt not profit,' says the wise man; and truly the sentence is full of truth: perhaps Lady Anne may resemble him; I know too little of her to judge. We should make allowance for this disposition, because our own failings lie the other way."
"Say rather our virtues, brother, for surely constancy is one?" said the old lady.
