 presumes to understand and be competent and equal to
business and affairs and concerns with which women should never
interfere or meddle or interest themselves. It is clearly and evidently
and certainly to the interest and advantage and benefit of this woman,
that Miss Mowbray, over whom she has great influence and power and
authority, should be established and fixed and settled in affluence,
rather than remain and abide and continue where nature and justice and
reason have placed her.'

'I own, Sir Richard, I cannot see the thing in this light. However, to
do nothing rashly, let us consider how to proceed.'

Sir Richard then advised him by no means to answer Lord Westhaven's
letter, but to wait till he saw his Lordship; as in cases so momentous,
it was, he said, always wrong to give any thing in black and white. In a
few days afterwards he heard out of Norfolk, (for he had come up from
thence to consult with Sir Richard Crofts) that Lord Delamere was ill
at Besançon. His precipitate departure had before given him the most
poignant concern; and now his fears for his life completed the distress
of this unfortunate father. On receiving, however, the second letter
from Lord Westhaven, together with that of Emmeline, his apprehensions
for the life of his son were removed, and left his mind at liberty to
recur again to the impending loss of four thousand five hundred a year,
with the unpleasant accompanyment of being obliged to refund above sixty
thousand pounds. Again Sir Richard Crofts was sent for, and again he
tried to quiet the apprehensions of Lord Montreville. But his attempt to
persuade him that the whole might be a deception originating with the
Staffords, obtained not a moment's attention. He knew Stafford himself
was weak, ignorant, and indolent, and would neither have had sagacity to
think of or courage to execute such a design; and that Mrs. Stafford
should imagine and perform it seemed equally improbable. He was
perfectly aware that Lord Westhaven had a thorough acquaintance with
business, and was of all men on earth the most unlikely to enter warmly
into such an affair, (against the interest too of the family into which
he had married) unless he was very sure of having very good grounds for
his interference.

But tho' Sir Richard could not prevail on him to disbelieve the whole of
the story, he saw that his Lordship thought with great reluctance of the
necessity he should be under of relinquishing the whole of the fortune.
He now therefore recommended it to him to remain quiet, at least 'till
Lord Westhaven came
