“Yes, and here comes the balk. Of course I had to refer it to Cecilia, and she positively declines, and has no reasons to give; does not deny that George is good-looking and sensible, that he is a man of whose preference any girl might be proud; but she chooses to say she cannot love him, and when I ask why she cannot love him, has no other answer than that ‘she cannot say.’ It is too provoking.” “It is provoking,” answered Kenelm; “but then Love is the most dunderheaded of all the passions; it never will listen to reason. The very rudiments of logic are unknown to it. ‘Love has no wherefore,’ says one of those Latin poets who wrote love-verses called elegies,--a name which we moderns appropriate to funeral dirges. For my own part, I can’t understand how any one can be expected voluntarily to make up his mind to go out of his mind. And if Miss Travers cannot go out of her mind because George Belvoir does, you could not argue her into doing so if you talked till doomsday.” Travers smiled in spite of himself, but he answered gravely, “Certainly, I would not wish Cissy to marry any man she disliked, but she does not dislike George; no girl could: and where that is the case, a girl so sensible, so affectionate, so well brought up, is sure to love, after marriage, a thoroughly kind and estimable man, especially when she has no previous attachment,--which, of course, Cissy never had. In fact, though I do not wish to force my daughter’s will, I am not yet disposed to give up my own. Do you understand?” “Perfectly.” “I am the more inclined to a marriage so desirable in every way, because when Cissy comes out in London, which she has not yet done, she is sure to collect round her face and her presumptive inheritance all the handsome fortune-hunters and titled _vauriens_; and if in love there is no wherefore, how can I be sure that she may not fall in love with a scamp?” “I think you may be sure of that,” said Kenelm. “Miss Travers has too much mind.” “Yes, at present; but did you not say that in love people go out of their mind?” “True! I forgot that.” “I am not then disposed to dismiss poor George’s offer with a decided negative, and yet it would be unfair to mislead him by encouragement. In fact, I’ll be hanged if I know how to reply.” “You think Miss Travers does not dislike George Belvoir, and if she saw more of him may like him better, and it would be good for her as well as for him not to put an end to that, chance?” “Exactly so.” “Why not then write: ‘My dear George,--You have my best wishes, but my daughter does not seem disposed to marry at present. Let me consider your letter not written, and continue on the same terms as we were before.’ Perhaps, as George knows Virgil, you might find your own schoolboy recollections of that poet useful here, and add, _Varium et mutabile semper femina_; hackneyed, but true.” “My dear Chillingly, your suggestion is capital. How the deuce at your age have you contrived to know the world so well?”