 state of slackness; and if he
courted Lætitia on behalf of his cousin, his cousinly love must have been
greater than his passion, one had to suppose. He was generous enough for it, or
for marrying the portionless girl himself.
    There was a story of a brilliant young widow of our aristocracy who had very
nearly snared him. Why should he object to marry into our aristocracy? Mrs.
Mountstuart asked him, and he replied, that the girls of that class have no
money, and he doubted the quality of their blood. He had his eyes awake. His
duty to his House was a foremost thought with him, and for such a reason he may
have been more anxious to give the slim and not robust Lætitia to Vernon than
accede to his personal inclination. The mention of the widow singularly offended
him, notwithstanding the high rank of the lady named. »A widow?« he said. »I!«
He spoke to a widow; an oldish one truly; but his wrath at the suggestion of his
union with a widow, led him to be for the moment oblivious of the minor shades
of good taste. He desired Mrs. Mountstuart to contradict the story in positive
terms. He repeated his desire; he was urgent to have it contradicted, and said
again: »A widow!« straightening his whole figure to the erectness of the letter
I. She was a widow unmarried a second time, and it has been known of the
stedfast women who retain the name of their first husband, or do not hamper his
title with a little new squire at their skirts, that they can partially approve
the objections indicated by Sir Willoughby. They are thinking of themselves when
they do so, and they will rarely say, »I might have married«; rarely within them
will they avow that, with their permission, it might have been. They can catch
an idea of a gentleman's view of the widow's cap. But a niceness that could feel
sharply wounded by the simple rumour of his alliance with the young relict of an
earl, was mystifying. Sir Willoughby unbent. His military letter I took a
careless glance at itself lounging idly and proudly at ease in the glass of his
mind, decked with a wanton wreath, as he dropped a hint, generously vague, just
to show the origin of the rumour, and the excellent basis it had for not being
credited. He was chidden. Mrs. Mountstuart read him a lecture. She was however
able to contradict the tale of the young countess. »There is no fear of his
marrying
