Hitherto she had said very little to Lady Elizabeth as to her lover. She had, in the first place, told her mother, and then had received from her mother, second-hand, her father's disapproval. At that time she had only said that it was "too late." Poor Lady Elizabeth had been able to make no useful answer to this. It certainly was too late. The evil should have been avoided by refusing admittance to Cousin George both in London and at Humblethwaite. It certainly was too late;--too late, that is, to avoid the evil altogether. The girl had been asked for her heart, and had given it. It was very much too late. But evils such as that do admit of remedy. It is not every girl that can marry the man whom she first confesses that she loves. Lady Elizabeth had some idea that her child, being nobler born and of more importance than other people's children, ought to have been allowed by fate to do so,--as there certainly is a something withdrawn from the delicate aroma of a first-class young woman by any transfer of affections;--but if it might not be so, even an Emily Hotspur must submit to a lot not uncommon among young women in general, and wait and wish till she could acknowledge to herself that her heart was susceptible of another wound. That was the mother's hope at present,--her hope, when she was positively told by Sir Harry that George Hotspur was quite out of the question as a husband for the heiress of Humblethwaite. But this would probably come the sooner if little or nothing were said of George Hotspur.