Or did you expect that, in hopes of being a pattern for the rising generation, I should hold my features in penance, immoveably, thus--like some of the poor ladies of Antigua, who, after they have blistered their faces all over, to get a fine complexion, are forced, whilst the new skin is coming, to sit without speaking, smiling, or moving muscle or feature, lest an indelible wrinkle should be the consequence?” Lady Boucher was impatient to have this speech finished, for she had a piece of news to tell. “Well!” cried she, “there’s no knowing what to believe or disbelieve, one hears so many strange reports; but I have a piece of news for you, that you may all depend upon. I have one secret worth knowing, I can tell your ladyship--and one, your ladyship and Miss Portman, I’m sure, will be rejoiced to hear. Your friend, Clarence Hervey, is going to be married.” “Married! married!” cried Lady Delacour. “Ay, ay, your ladyship may look as much astonished as you please, you cannot be more so than I was when I heard it. Clarence Hervey, Miss Portman, that was looked upon so completely, you know, as not a marrying man; and now the last man upon earth that your ladyship would suspect of marrying in this sort of way!” “In what sort of way?--My dear Belinda, how can you stand this fire?” said Lady Delacour, placing a skreen, dexterously, to hide her face from the dowager’s observation. “Now only guess whom he is going to marry,” continued Lady Boucher: “whom do _you_ guess, Miss Portman?” “An amiable woman, I should guess, from Mr. Hervey’s general character,” cried Lady Delacour. “Oh, an amiable woman, I take for granted; every woman is amiable of course, as the newspapers tell us, when she is going to be married,” said the dowager: “an amiable woman, to be sure; but that means nothing. I have not had a guess from Miss Portman.” “From general character,” Belinda began, in a constrained voice. “Do not guess from general character, my dear Belinda,” interrupted Lady Delacour; “for there is no judging, in these cases, from general character, of what people will like or dislike.” “Then I will leave it to your ladyship to guess this time, if you please,” said Belinda. “You will neither of you guess till doomsday!” cried the dowager; “I must tell you. Mr. Hervey’s going to marry--in the strangest sort of way!--a girl that nobody knows--a daughter of a Mr. Hartley. The father can give her a good fortune, it is true; but one should not have supposed that fortune was an object with Mr. Hervey, who has such a noble one of his own. It’s really difficult to believe it.” “So difficult, that I find it quite impossible,” said Lady Delacour, with an incredulous smile. “Depend upon it, my dear Lady Delacour,” said the dowager, laying the convincing weight of her arm upon her ladyship’s, “depend upon it, my dear Lady Delacour, that my information is correct. Guess whom I had it from.”