“Why not, Mr. Legge?--Anne Mordaunt is as sweet a girl as there is in the colony, and is very respectably connected. They even say the Mordaunts are of a high family at home. Mary Wallace told me that Herman Mordaunt and Sir Henry Bulstrode are themselves related; and you know, my dear, how intimate the Mordaunts and the Wallaces are?” “Not I;--I know nothing of their intimacies, though I dare say it may be all true. Mordaunt's father was an English gentleman of some family, I have always heard, though he was as poor as a church-mouse, when he married one of our Dutch heiresses; and as for Herman Mordaunt himself, he proved he had not lost the instinct by marrying another, though she did not happen to be Dutch. Here comes Anneke to inherit it all, and I'll answer for it that care is had that she shall marry an heir.” “Well, Mr. Bulstrode is an heir, and the eldest son of a baronet. I am always pleased when one of our girls makes a good connection at home, for it does the colony credit. It is an excellent thing, Corny, to have our interest well sustained at home--especially before the Privy Council, they tell me.” “Well, I am not,” answered my uncle. “I think it more to the credit of the colony for its young women to take up with its young men, and its young men with its young women. I wish Anne Mordaunt had been substituted for the Hon. Ballyshannon to-night. She would have made a thousand times better 'virtuous Marcia.” “You surely would not have had a young lady of respectability appear in public, in this way, Mr. Legge.” My uncle said something to this, for he seldom let “Jane” get the better of it for want of an answer; but as I left the box, I did not hear his reply. It seemed then to be settled, in the minds of most persons, that Bulstrode was to marry Anneke! I cannot describe the new shock this opinion gave me; but it seemed to make me more fully sensible of the depth of the impression that had been made on myself, in the intercourse of a single week. The effect was such that I did not return to the party I had left, but sought a seat in a distant part of the theatre, though one in which I could distinctly see those I had abandoned.