The chicken, the salad, and the toast were at length consumed. All rose from table, and Augustus felt that it was time for him to withdraw. Julia accompanied him to the door, there was some low-toned conversation, and he was gone. 'Well! my dear Julia,' said Lady Caroline, 'I do not know what I should do without your kind good-nature, to take the bores off my hands. It must be between three and four hours since that misguided man arrived, and you have been with him all the time! Does your head ache?' 'Oh no, dear Lady Caroline, I have got through the visit very pleasantly. He does not talk so much as to weary one, and yet he has plenty to say.' 'Ah? Then I may save my condolences. So much the better! He strikes me as being almost good-looking, if he were only a gentleman, and not quite so tightly buttoned into his clothes. Men laugh at women's tightlacing, but how they endure all these wisps of muslin round their throats I cannot think. And I am sure they are quite as ridiculous.' 'I thought Mr. Wallowby dressed rather nicely; and as to his manners--of course he has never gone into society, and he is not the least like a guardsman; but then he has never had the chance to see one. And, who knows? he may have a son in the army at least, perhaps even a field-marshal, or a Lord-Chancellor, for I hear he is very rich, and even the greatest families must have a first man, or perhaps, as you would say, the man before that.' 'Julia, my dear, you are a philosopher! The gentleman must have merit, or he would not have won over my critical young cousin so soon. He is rich you say?' 'Yes, Lady Caroline. Miss Brown, who was living with the Sangsters says he is very rich; and it would be too absurd in a penniless girl like me to be critical and fastidious in judging a man of his substantial fortune.' 'Fastidious! my dear? Then there is a chance of his being submitted to your approval?' Julia coloured. 'Indeed Lady Caroline, it is so hard for a girl to say. But if you will not think me absurd, I almost fancy there might perhaps be a possibility of something like that.' 'Ah, then, my dear, that alters the question altogether. I have no daughter of my own, and there is no one whose settlement in life I have more nearly at heart than yours. Confide in me, child! I have every wish to be a mother to you.'