“Now, my lord,” cried Lady Geraldine with a tone and look of comic vexation, “this is really the most provoking thing imaginable; you have no idea how you distress me, nor of what exquisite pleasures you deprive me--all the pleasures of coquetry; legitimate pleasures, in certain circumstances, as I am instructed to think them by one of the first moral authorities. There is a case--I quote from memory, my lord; for my memory, like that of most other people, on subjects where I am deeply interested, is tolerably tenacious--there is a case, says the best of fathers, in his Legacy to the best of daughters--there is a case, where a woman may coquet justifiably to the utmost verge which her conscience will allow. It is where a gentleman purposely declines making his addresses, till such time as he thinks himself perfectly sure of her consent. Now, my lord, if you had had the goodness to do so, I might have made this delightful case my own; and what charming latitude I might have allowed my conscience! But now, alas! it is all over, and I must be as frank as you have been, under pain of forfeiting what I value more even than admiration--my own good opinion.” She paused, and was silent for a few moments; then suddenly changing her manner, she exclaimed, in a serious, energetic tone, “Yes, I must, I will be sincere; let it cost me what it may. I will be sincere. My lord, I never can be yours. My lord, you will believe me, even from the effort with which I speak:” her voice softened, and her face suffused with crimson, as she spoke. “I love another--my heart is no longer in my own possession; whether it will ever be in my power, consistently with my duty and his principles, to be united with the man of my choice, is doubtful--more than doubtful--but this is certain, that with such a prepossession, such a conviction in my mind, I never could nor ought to think of marrying any other person.” I pleaded, that however deserving of her preference the object of her favour might be, yet that if there were, as her own prudence seemed to suggest, obstacles, rendering the probability of her union with that person more than doubtful, it might be possible that her superior sense and strength of mind, joined to the persevering affection of another lover, who would spare no exertions to render himself worthy of her, might, perhaps, in time--