“I know,” interrupted Lady Cecilia, colouring, and she began as fast as possible to urge every argument she could think of to persuade Miss Clarendon; but no arguments, no entreaties of hers or the general’s, public or private, were of any avail,--go she would, and go she did at six o’clock. “I suppose,” said Helen to Lady Davenant, “that Miss Clarendon is very estimable, and she seems to be very clever: but I wonder that with all her abilities she does not learn to make her manners more agreeable.” “My dear,” said Lady Davenant, “we must take people as they are; you may graft a rose upon an oak, but those who have tried the experiment tell us the graft will last but a short time, and the operation ends in the destruction of both; where the stocks have no common nature, there is ever a want of conformity which sooner or later proves fatal to both.” But Beauclerc, what was become of him?--that day passed, and no Beauclerc; another and another came, and on the third day, only a letter from him, which ought to have come on Tuesday.--But “_too late_,” the shameful brand of procrastination was upon it--and it contained only a few lines blotted in the folding, to say that he could not possibly be at Clarendon Park on Tuesday, but would on Wednesday or Thursday if possible. Good-natured Lord Davenant observed, “When a young man in London, writing to his friends in the country, names two days for leaving town, and adds an ‘_if possible_’ his friends should never expect him till the last of the two named.” The last of the two days arrived--Thursday. The aide-de-camp asked if Mr. Beauclerc was expected to-day. “Yes, I expect to see him to-day,” the general answered. “I hope, but do not expect,” said Lady Davenant, “for, as learned authority tells me, ‘to expect is to hope with some degree of certainty’--” The general left the room repeating, “I expect him to-day, Cecilia.” The day passed, however, and he came not--the night came. The general ordered that the gate should be kept open, and that a servant should sit up. The servant sat up all night, cursing Mr. Beauclerc. And in the morning he replied with malicious alacrity to the first question his master asked, “No, Sir, Mr. Beauclerc is not come.” At breakfast, the general, after buttering his bread in silence for some minutes, confessed that he loved punctuality. It might be a military prejudice;--it might be too professional, martinet perhaps,--but still he owned he did love punctuality. He considered it as a part of politeness, a proper attention to the convenience and feelings of others; indispensable between strangers it is usually felt to be, and he did not know why intimate friends should deem themselves privileged to dispense with it. His eyes met Helen’s as he finished these words, and smiling, he complimented her upon her constant punctuality. It was a voluntary grace in a lady, but an imperative duty in a man--and a young man.