Colonel Crop was thunderstruck at the mode in which the magistrate received the information; and was still more astonished to hear that the lady was related to the baronet. And the colonel himself was almost angry with Lord Spoonbill, for thinking of proposing such an arrangement with a lady so respectably connected. But when the colonel proceeded to state that his commission was to obtain the lady on any terms, and when the baronet understood that his lordship was so enamoured as to meditate matrimony, that mightily altered the case. Then the magistrate gave full and free permission to the colonel to have access to the lady, and state with as much eloquence as he pleased, the proposals which he might have to make. It is indeed true, that Sir George could not help thinking, that if Lord Spoonbill had been disposed to make an offer of his hand to Miss Glossop, it would have been rather more respectful to “apply personally, or by letter post paid,” than to use the intervention of a gentleman whose services had been employed in negociations of no very reputable nature. The baronet however conceded, that there might be on the part of Lord Spoonbill a more than usual degree of want of ceremony allowed, in consequence of the difference of rank between the parties. The very possibility of making a relation of his a countess, reconciled the unpaid one to the negociation of the half-paid one. The end sanctified the means. Now occurred again to the baronet’s recollection the visit which Miss Glossop had paid to Smatterton castle, and he concluded of course that it was at this visit that the charms of Arabella’s voice and person had taken captive the heart of Lord Spoonbill. At the contemplation of the possibility that his high-spirited relative should make a match with so great a man as the eldest son of an earl, the worthy magistrate felt mightily gratified. It is somewhat admirable that Sir George Aimwell should regard with any great satisfaction a probable marriage commenced by negociations of so equivocal a nature. But there is something in dignity and in high rank so fascinating and overwhelming, that what would be insolence in others is condescension in men of title and rank. And it is also a truth that Sir George, though himself a baronet or lordling, and bearing the same relation to nobility as velveteen bears to velvet, yet looked upon nobility with greater reverence and admiration than persons more remote from that high rank regard the possessors of titles.