Hereupon he felt greatly consoled, and perfectly secure against being exposed to Tuft, as Tuft had been exposed to him. Yet he was mistaken. How can the reader forgive Lady Cecilia for her double breach of promise, when he is informed, that only a day or two afterwards, Tuft and she being thrown together, partly out of pity to her rejected and bitterly mortified suitor, partly from an impulse of womanly vanity, and partly from a sort of glimpse of even-handed justice requiring such a step, as a kind of reparation to Tuft for her exposure of him to the marquis--she ("in the strictest confidence," however) informed him that his example had been followed by the marquis; utterly forgetful of that excellent maxim, "begin nothing of which you have not well considered the end." It had not occurred to her Ladyship as being a thing almost certain to ensue upon her breach of faith, that Tuft would ask her whether she had violated _his_ confidence. He did so: she blushed scarlet--and though, like her august papa, she could have _equivocated_ when she could not have _lied_, here she was in a dilemma from which nothing but a fib could possibly extricate her; and in a confident tone, but with a burning cheek, she told a falsehood, and had, moreover, the pain of being conscious, by Mr. Tuft's look, that he did not believe her.--Nothing could exceed the comical air of embarrassment of the marquis and Mr. Tuft, whenever, after this, they were alone together! How fearful lest--how doubtful whether--each knew as much as the other! To return, however, to the Earl of Dreddlington, (who was utterly in ignorance of the marquis and Mr. Tuft's proposals to Lady Cecilia,) the difficulty which at present harassed his Lordship was, how he could, without compromising his own dignity, or injuring his darling scheme by a premature development of his purpose, sound Titmouse upon the subject. How to break the ice--to broach the affair--was the great problem which the earl turned over and over again in his mind. Now, be it observed, that when a muddle-headed man is called upon at length _to act_--however long beforehand he may have had notice of it--however assured he may have been of the necessity for eventually taking one course or another, and consequently, however ample the opportunity had for consideration, he remains confused and irresolute up to the very _last instant_--when he acts, after all, merely as the creature of caprice and impulse! 'Twas thus with Lord Dreddlington. He had thought of half a dozen different ways of commencing with Titmouse, and decided upon adopting each; yet, on the arrival of the anxiously looked for moment, he had lost sight of them all, in his inward fluster and nervousness.