To this the young gentleman bowed respectfully. Now it does not appear to us that Mr Darnley adopted the best plan in the world to set his son's heart at rest. Nor did Robert Darnley find any great alleviation in what his father had been pleased to say concerning Penelope's actual situation and real character. It also occurred to the young gentleman's mind, that his father had superfluously and unnecessarily quoted the fact of Mr Primrose having used irreverent and thoughtless language. It is not indeed, generally speaking, advisable to bring every possible accusation against an offending one; for by so doing we make known our own pettishness or malignity quite as much as we display the sins of the accused. If Miss Primrose had been in other respects a suitable wife for Robert Darnley, the fact that her father had spoken hastily and unadvisedly, would not have rendered her unsuitable. And if the situation of Penelope had been such as it had been represented by Mr Pringle, then there was quite enough to set Robert Darnley's mind at rest upon the subject, without quoting Mr Primrose's transgressions. The disappointed lover had no sooner finished the task of hearing his father's lecture, than he was destined to undergo a gabblement from his mother and sisters. Mrs Darnley was a worthy good creature as ever lived; but she would talk, and that not always consequentially. She always however meant well, though she might be clumsy in the manifestation of her well-meaning. "Well, Robert,"--thus began Mrs Darnley,--"and so your father has been talking to you about poor Penelope Primrose. What a pity it is that such a nice young woman should turn out so. I really could hardly believe my senses when I first heard of it. Dear me, what a favorite she used to be here; your father used to think so highly of her." "I can't say that I thought so very highly of her," interrupted Miss Mary Darnley; "she was a great deal too haughty for my liking. Of course we were civil to her for Robert's sake." Miss Mary was rude in thus interrupting her mother, but it was the general practice with the young ladies, and Mrs Darnley was so much in the habit of being interrupted, that she always expected it, and kept talking on till some one else of the party began. Now this remark of Miss Mary might be founded on truth, or it might be merely the result of an angry imagination. For there is in the human mind such a reluctance to acknowledge an error in judgment, that even when we have been really and palpably deceived in a human character, we generally find out or persuade ourselves that we "prophesied so," though we never told any body. The eldest Miss Darnley, however, had more candour. It was her opinion that, though Miss Primrose had not behaved exactly as she ought to do, yet she had too high a sense of propriety and decorum ever to transgress as was represented by Mr Pringle.