“Of that you are the best judge,” said Russell, gravely. “I am far from wishing--from urging you to waste your time. Lady Mary Vivian must know more of Miss Sidney, and be better able to judge of the state of her heart than I can be. It would not be the part of a friend to excite you to persevere in a pursuit that would end in disappointment; but this much, before we quit the subject for ever, I feel it my duty to say--that I think Miss Sidney the woman of all others the best suited to your character, the most deserving of your love, the most calculated to make you exquisitely and permanently happy.” “All that’s very true,” said Vivian, impatiently; “but, since I can’t have her, why make me miserable about her?” “Am I to understand,” resumed Russell, after a long pause, “am I to understand that, now you have regained your freedom, you come here with the settled purpose of espousing the Lady Sarah Lidhurst?” “Heaven forfend!” cried Vivian, starting back. “Then I am to go over again, on this subject, with indefatigable patience and in due logical order, all the arguments, moral, prudential, and conventional, which I had the labour of laying before you about a twelvemonth ago.” “Save yourself the trouble, my dear friend!” said Vivian; “I shall set all that upon a right footing immediately, by speaking of the report at once to some of the family. I was going to _rise to explain_ this morning, when I was with Lady Glastonbury; but I felt a sort of delicacy--it was an awkward time--and at that moment somebody came into the room.” “Ay,” said Russell, “you are just like the hero of a novel, stopped from saying what he ought to say by somebody’s coming into the room.--Awkward time! Take care you don’t sacrifice yourself at last to these _awkwardnesses_ and this sort of _delicacies_. I have still my fears that you will get into difficulties about Lady Sarah.” Vivian could not help laughing at what he called his friend’s absurd fears. “If you are determined, my dear Russell, at all events to fear for me, I’ll suggest to you a more reasonable cause of dread. Suppose I should fall desperately in love with Lady Julia!--I assure you there’s some danger of that. She is really very handsome and very graceful; uncommonly clever and eloquent--as to the rest, you know her--what is she?” “All that you have said, and more. She might be made any thing--every thing; an ornament to her sex--an honour to her country--were she under the guidance of persons fit to direct great powers and a noble character; but yet I cannot, Vivian, as your friend, recommend her to you as a wife.” “I am not thinking of her as a wife,” said Vivian: “I have not had time to think of her at all yet. But you said, just now, that in good hands she might be made every thing that is good and great. Why not by a husband, instead of a governess? and would not you call mine _good hands_?”