I suspect, rejoined the other, I may appear to you more inquisitive than I ought to be; but I beg leave to say in my own defence that I was particularly referred to you by Sir David himself. Sir David could not have referred you to a more unfit man: I am as ignorant of my own father’s estate as I am of Sir David’s, and of Sir David’s as I am of your’s. Why then, sir, I must pay a visit to Penruth myself; for I have my father’s strict commands to obtain information of every particular necessary for him to know relative to Sir David Ap Owen, who, I must now tell you, has made proposals to us for marrying my sister. Yes, and to me, said Philip, for marrying his mother; you see therefore it is a family-affair between us, and though I have not a single syllable to offer why Sir David’s marriage with your sister should not take place, I confess it would not break my heart if mine with his mother was put off for ever. Now, sir, if you are bound to England, I can truly say, I wish I were going with you; but if you meditate a visit to Penruth Abbey, where there is nobody to receive you, I most earnestly recommend it to you to turn aside and go to Kray Castle, where my father and his family will be happy to see you, and where you may do me a singular piece of service, if you will take charge of this letter, which I have just been writing, and deliver it privately to my son, whilst I will trouble you to be the bearer of a few lines to my good and worthy father, simply to let him know how respectable a visitor I shall have the honour to introduce to him, when you are pleased to avail yourself of his well known hospitality. Sir, replied Devereux, I am setting off for England in to-morrow’s pacquet. Of your letter to your son I will take faithful charge, and deliver it to him in the manner you prescribe. I also thankfully embrace your very kind offer of introducing me to your father, of whose high character for worth and honour I am not uninformed; whilst I must own there is a mysterious kind of cloud about Sir David Ap Owen, through which I am not able perfectly to see my way; for I find him totally unknown to our British envoy here, and have not heard him say what brings him and the lady, to whom it seems you are engaged, into this country, having so lately succeeded to a great situation and establishment in his own. With respect to his proposed connection with my family, I must beg to say, that although we reside here in the character and capacity of merchants, we have nevertheless such pretensions on the score of noble birth and property by no means inconsiderable, as give us a perfect right to use every honorable precaution for knowing whom we are to receive into our alliance, provided the gentleman, who proposes, shall prove acceptable to us as well as to my sister; on whom nothing has been sparingly bestowed, that either nature could give or education improve.