Possessing neither candour nor generosity herself, she was incapable of loving those qualities in another; and in answer to Lord Montreville's praises of Emmeline, which she heard with reluctance, she was not ashamed to say, that perhaps were the whole truth known, his Lordship would find but little reason to set up his relation's character higher than that of his own children--to which her eldest daughter added--'Why, to be sure, Madam, there is, as my father says, something very extraordinary in Miss Mowbray's refusing _such a match_--that is, _if_ she has no other attachment.' Augusta Delamere heard all that her father said in commendation of her beloved Emmeline, with eyes suffused with tears, which drew on her the anger of her mother and the malignant sneers of her sister. The two young ladies however were sent away, while a council was held between Lord and Lady Montreville and Crofts, on what steps it was immediately necessary to take. Several ideas were started, but none which his Lordship approved. He determined therefore to write to his son; with whose residence at Tylehurst, the house of Sir Philip Carnaby, Emmeline's letter acquainted him; and wait his answer before he proceeded farther. With this resolution, Lady Montreville was extremely discontented; and proposed, as the only plan on which they could depend, that his Lordship, under pretence of placing her properly, should send Emmeline to France, and there confine her till Delamere, hopeless of regaining her, should consent to marry Miss Otley. Her Ladyship urged--'That it could not possibly do the girl any harm; and that very worthy people had not scrupled to commit much more violent actions where their motive was right, tho' less strong, than that which would in this case actuate Lord Montreville, which was,' she said, 'to save the sole remaining heir of a noble house from a degrading and beggarly alliance.' 'Hold! Madam,' cried Lord Montreville, who was extremely displeased at the proposal, and with the speech with which it closed--'Remember, I beg of you, that when you speak of the Mowbray family, you speak of one very little if at all inferior to your own; nor should you, Lady Montreville, forget, in the heat of your resentment, that you are a woman--a woman too, whose birth should at least give you a liberal mind, and put you above thinking of an action as unfeminine as inhuman. Surely, as a mother who have daughters of your own, you should have some feeling for this young woman; not at all their inferior, but in being born under circumstances for which she is not to blame, and which mark with sufficient unhappiness a life that might otherwise have done as much honour to my family as I hope your daughters will do to your's.'