“Death! dear ma’am; ladies, you know as well as I do, don’t die of love in these days--you would not make a fool of your son.” “I could not; nor could any other woman--that is clear: but amongst us, I am afraid we have, undesignedly indeed, but irremediably, made a fool of this poor confiding girl.” “But, ma’am, in whom did she confide? not in me, I’ll swear. I have nothing to reproach myself with, thank God!--My conscience is clear; I have been as ungallant as possible. I have been as cruel as my nature would permit. I am sure no one can charge me with giving false promises--I scarcely speak--nor false hopes, for I scarcely look at the young lady.” “So, then, you know who the young lady in question is?” “Perhaps I ought not to pretend to know.” “That would be useless affectation, alas! for I fear many know, and have seen, and heard, much more than you have--or I either.” Here Mrs. Beaumont observed that her son’s colour changed, and that he suddenly grew serious: aware that she had now touched upon the right chord, she struck it again “with a master’s hand and prophet’s fire.” She declared that all the world took it for granted that Miss Hunter was to be married to Mr. Beaumont; that it was talked of every where; that she was asked continually by her correspondents, when the marriage was to take place?--in confirmation of which assertion, she produced bundles of letters from her pockets, from Mrs. and Miss, and from Lady This, and Lady That. “Nay,” continued she, “if it were confined even to the circle of one’s private friends and acquaintance, I should not so much mind it, for one might contradict, and have it contradicted, and one might send the poor thing away to some watering-place, and the report might die away, as reports do--sometimes. But all that sort of thing it is too late to think of now--for the thing is public! quite public! got into the newspapers! Here’s a paragraph I cut out this very morning from my paper, lest the poor girl should see it. The other day, I believe you saw it yourself, there was something of the same sort. ‘We hear that, as soon as he comes of age, Mr. Beaumont, of Beaumont Park, is to lead to the altar of Hymen, Miss Hunter, sister to Sir John Hunter, of Devonshire.’ Well,--after you left the room, Albina took up the paper you had been reading; and when she saw this paragraph, I thought she would have dropped. I did not know what to do. Whatever I could say, you know, would only make it worse. I tried to turn it off, and talked of twenty things; but it would not do--no, no, it is too serious for that: well, though I believe she would rather have put her hand in the fire, she had the courage to speak to me about it herself.” “And what did she say, ma’am?” inquired Mr. Beaumont, eagerly.