Lady Augusta looked at him aghast. What could make up for these disadvantages? The blood went back upon her heart, then rallied slightly as she remembered her brother-in-law’s shopkeeping origin, and that the widow might be some friend of his. “Is she--very rich?” she stammered. To do her justice, she was thinking then of her husband, not herself; she was thinking how she could write to him, saying, “These are terrible drawbacks, but nevertheless----” But nevertheless--Harry burst into another loud, coarse laugh. Poor fellow! nobody could feel less like laughing; he did it to conceal his confusion a little, and the terrible sense he began to have that, so far as his father and mother were concerned, he had made a dreadful mistake. “I don’t know how rich she is, nor how poor. That is not what I ever thought of,” he cried, with lofty scorn. This somehow appeased the gathering terror of Lady Augusta. “I don’t suppose you did think of it,” she said; “but it is a thing your father will think of. Harry, tell me in confidence--I shall never think you mercenary--what is her family? Are they rich people? Are they friends of your uncle Tottenham? Dear Harry, why should you make a mystery of this with me?” “Listen, then,” he said, setting his teeth, “and when you know everything you will not be able to ask any more questions. She is a cousin of your Edgar’s that you are so fond of. Her brother is the new doctor at Harbour Green, and she lives with him. There, now you know as much as I know myself.” Words would fail me to tell the wide-eyed consternation with which Lady Augusta listened. It seemed to her that everything that was obnoxious had been collected into this description. Poor, nobody, the sister of a country doctor; a widow with a child; and finally, to wind up everything, and make the combination still more and more terrible, Edgar’s cousin! Heaven help her! It was hard enough to think of this for herself; but to let his father know!--this was more than any woman could venture to do. She grew sick and faint in a horrible sense of the desperation of the circumstances; the girls might be obstinate, but they would not take the bit in their teeth and go off, determined to have their way, like the boy, who was the heir, and knew his own importance; and what could any exhortation of hers do for Harry, who knew as well as she did the frightful consequences, and had always flattered himself on being a man of the world? She was so stupefied that she scarcely understood all the protestations that he poured into her ear after this. What was it to her that Margaret was the loveliest creature in the world? Faugh! Lady Augusta turned sickening from the words. Lovely creatures who rend peaceful families asunder; who lead young men astray, and ruin all their hopes and prospects; who heighten all existing difficulties, and make everything that was bad before worse a thousand times--is it likely that a middle-aged mother should be moved by their charms?