“What can I do?” she cried. “I do not want to say a word against your cousin. She may be nice, as nice as though she were a duke’s daughter; but Harry is our eldest son, and all my children have done so badly in this way except little Mary. Oh! my dears, I beg your pardon!” cried poor Lady Augusta, drying her eyes, “but what can I say? Edgar, I have always felt that I could ask you to do anything, if things should ever be settled between Gussy and you. Oh! save my boy! She cannot be very fond of him, she has known him so little; and his father will be furious, and will never consent--never! And until Mr. Thornleigh dies, they would have next to nothing, Oh! Edgar, if she is sensible, and would listen to reason, I would go to her myself--or Gussy could go.” “Not I,” said Gussy, stealing a deprecating look at Edgar, who stood stupefied by this new complication--“how could I? It is terrible. How can I, who am pleasing myself, say anything to Harry because he wants to please himself?--or to _her_, who has nothing to do with our miserable and mercenary ways? Oh! yes, they are miserable and mercenary!” cried Gussy, crying in her turn; “though I can’t help feeling as you do, though my mind revolts against this poor girl, whom I don’t know, and I want to save Harry, too, as you say. But how dare I make Harry unhappy, in order to be happy myself? Oh! mamma, seek some other messenger--not me!--not me!” “My darling,” said Lady Augusta, “it is for Harry’s good.” “And it was for my good a little while ago!” cried Gussy. “You meant it, and so did they all. If you could have persuaded me to marry some one I cared nothing for, with my heart always longing for another, you would have thought it for my good; and now must I try to buy my happiness by ruining Harry’s?” cried the girl; “though I, too, am so dreadful, that I think it would be for Harry’s good. Oh! no, no, let it be some one else!” “Edgar,” said Lady Augusta, “speak to her, show her the difference. Harry never saw this--this young woman till about a fortnight since. What can he know of her, what can she know of him, to be ready to marry him in a fortnight? Oh! Edgar, try to save my boy! Even if you were to represent to him that it would be kind to let your business be settled first,” she went on, after a pause. “A little time might do everything. I hope it is not wrong to scheme a little for one’s own children and their happiness. You might persuade him to wait, for Gussy’s sake--not to make his father furious with two at a time.”