So saying Lady Aimwell left the apartment, and Miss Glossop remained alone to think over the meaning and interpretation of her ladyship’s threat. Not long did the young lady exercise her conjectures; for it was very clear to her that Lady Aimwell designed to write to Mr Glossop, of whom Miss Arabella stood more in awe than of any other human being. But as she knew that her father’s views for her were of the aspiring and ambitious cast, and as she had no other thought concerning the negociation of Colonel Crop, than that her own sweet person and graceful manners and accomplishments had won the affection of Lord Spoonbill, she felt very much at ease even under Lady Aimwell’s threat, and had no fears that her father would throw any obstacle in the way of her marriage with a person of such high rank and consideration. CHAPTER X. Wise kings choose wise ministers. Lord Spoonbill little thought what a clumsy negociator he had selected in the person of Colonel Crop. His lordship had not discernment enough to see that the Colonel was a prodigious blockhead, and even when, as above recorded, the gallant officer substituted in his narration the name of Arabella for that of Penelope, neither the employed nor the employer had any suspicion that there might be any error in the apprehension, or any mistake as to the person sought. It might also appear to some persons strange, that so great and so sudden an alteration should have taken place in the mind of Miss Primrose. But Lord Spoonbill had never rightly appreciated that young lady’s character and disposition. For notwithstanding that Penelope was a person of high spirit and great constitutional vivacity, there was nothing in the temperament of her mind bordering on what is called the satirical. She was not one of those half knowing ones, who are ambitious of shewing their understanding by ridiculing the rest of the world as fools. Indeed, whenever she did encounter a blockhead, and that was not unfrequent, she made it rather a rule to treat him with much consideration and tenderness of manner, knowing that no man would voluntarily choose to be a booby. Lord Spoonbill was somewhat of a blockhead, but he was not totally and altogether obtuse. He had a considerable degree of pertness and a certain coxcomical air, whereby he passed with himself and his dependent intimates as a man of some understanding. Now, though Miss Primrose could and did see that notwithstanding all his fine airs he was but a very weak young man, yet she always behaved and spoke to him most respectfully, and even diffidently. So that his lordship thought himself a clever fellow in the sight of Miss Primrose.