She had seen his beautiful equipage, his four blood bays; she had seen engravings of his magnificent seat in Staffordshire, of his lovely villa near London, of his ancient castle in Wales. She was proof against the splendour of Ashdale Park, and the elegancies of Beausejour, but the castle had a decided effect upon her heart. The walls were nine feet thick; there was a donjon keep, at the top of a tower nine hundred and forty-one years old; and Lord Montreville’s teeth were extremely good, almost as good as Captain Langley’s. From the vaults under the Caërwhwyddwth Castle subterraneous passages, to the end of which no one within the memory of man had penetrated, were supposed to extend to the ruined monastery of Caërmerwhysteddwhstgen; and then Lord Montreville was quite thin, not the least inclined to corpulency. He was older than Sir Charles Selcourt, but he was much more agreeable; he was certainly a great deal older than Captain Langley, but then Captain Langley was not the least clever. All their tastes agreed exactly. He was enthusiastic upon the self-same subjects,—puppies, donkeys, goslings, and Lord Byron. Her mind was in a wavering state, when the following conversation took place between herself and Milly:— “This is poor Miss Lizzy’s birth-day, miss, and we have all been drinking her health and happiness to-night at supper. She is twenty-two this very day.” “And I shall be nineteen next birthday, Milly. We are all growing very old. It is almost time I should be married. How old were you when you married?” “Nineteen, Miss Lucy.” “Just about my age. And how old was John?” “In his twenty-one, miss.” “Dear! I don’t think that was difference enough. A man ought to be a good deal older than his wife, that he may advise her, and guide her, and all that, as mamma says, when she is out of sight of her mother.” “I can’t say, miss. The Bible says, ‘I will make an help meet for him;’ so I suppose the woman is to help the man, as well as the man to help the woman; and if they are to help one another, why I reckon they should be something of an age.” “Perhaps that may be best, nurse, where they both have to work, and where the man should be young and strong to labour for his family; but in another line, nurse,—among richer people, you know,—where there is no occasion to be strong and to work hard, it is such a thing for a giddy young girl to have a steady sensible man, who can tell her all she ought to do—a man much cleverer than herself, a person she can quite look up to.” “Maybe it is, miss.” “And then, as mamma says, a married woman, if she is not quite ugly, is liable, you know, to have men—young men—talk to her,—talk to her a good deal,—more than they should; and then it is such a thing to have a husband who can tell her exactly whom she should talk to, and whom she should not talk to.”