"Why so, sir?" said the stately and mortified Baron, who felt and seemed to shrink from the contrast between the active and lively gallantry of the giddy Cambrian and the slow and cautious efforts of his own. "Why?--why? pecause he must be a prave fellow to venture matrimony with the first woman he saw." "How the devil should he do otherwise than take the first, when there was no other to choose!" said De Clavering. "The tevil however was even with him after all, (replied the unthinking Camelford;)--the old poy had petter have peen quiet." "I do not see that, (said De Willows;) and, as the mischief was productive of some good, surely we have no right to criticise with severity that conduct which was forgiven by Being so much more perfect than the creature he had created." "That is as much as to say, (rejoined Camelford,) that, when we choose to play the fool, cofet our neighbor's wife or taughter, we have only to plame our own imperfect nature, repent, and be forcifen." "That would be to trust our hopes of forgiveness upon a very sandy foundation indeed, (said Sir Philip,) as determined guilt, or a continuance in error, can have but little chance of immortal happiness." "And for our mortal share of that same commodity, (replied the lively Hugh,) we must not trust to matrimony, I fear, as I never heard married people found their happiness puilt upon a rock." This speech produced a general laugh, but Sir Philip, who was by no means pleased with the subject, said with a smile to the Baron, "These young men think they know more than their forefathers." "By which means, (replied he,) they will most assuredly entail upon themselves the mortification of knowing less." The conversation, during the rest of the walk, was confined to such objects as occasionally presented themselves to observation. The inhabitants of the town came to their doors to catch a look at the party from the castle. To as many as were known by the governor he spoke familiarly, as did the other gentlemen, and they concluded the Baron must be some very great man, perhaps the king himself in disguise, because he did not once condescend to address them. Roseline chatted with some young girls who came out to make their best curtesies, while the Baron thought all these attentions paid to such plebeian souls wonderfully troublesome. At dinner he scarcely spoke five words, and De Willows was do disgusted with his forbidding haughtiness, that the next day he presented to De Clavering the following satire on pride, saying it was a tribute justly due to the Baron for his supreme excellency in the display of that detestable feature in his character.