"And what shall _I_ be then, my Lord?" inquired Titmouse, eagerly. "Sir, you will of course continue Mr. Titmouse." "'Pon my life, my Lord--shall I indeed?" he interrupted with a crestfallen air, "must we be called _Mr. Titmouse and Lady Drelincourt_? Excuse me, my Lord, but it don't sound at all like man and wife." "Sir, so it always has been, and will be, and so it ever ought to be," replied the earl, gravely. "Well but, my Lord, (excuse me, my Lord)--but marriage is a very serious thing, my Lord, your Lordship knows"---- "It is, sir, indeed," replied the earl, gloom visibly overspreading his features. "Suppose," continued Titmouse, "Lady Cicely should die before me?" The earl, remaining silent, fixed on Titmouse the eye of a FATHER--a father, though a very foolish one; and presently, with a sensible tremor in his voice, replied, "Sir, these are rather singular questions--but," he paused for some moments--"in such a mournful contingency as the one you have hinted at"---- "Oh, my Lord! I humbly beg pardon--of course, I should be, 'pon my soul, my Lord, most uncommon sorry"--interrupted Titmouse, with a little alarm in his manner. "I was saying, sir--that in such an event, if Lady Drelincourt left no issue, you would succeed to the barony; but should she leave issue, they will be called Honorable"---- "What!--'the Honorable Tittlebat Titmouse,' if it's a boy, and the 'Honorable Cecilia Titmouse,' if it's a girl?" "Sir, it will be so--unless you should choose to take the name and arms of Dreddlington, on marrying the sole heiress"---- "Oh! indeed, my Lord? 'Pon my life, my Lord, _that's_ worth considering--because--betwixt your Lordship and I, I a'n't over and above pleased with my own name. What will it cost to change it, now, my Lord?" "Sir," said the earl, struck with the idea, "that is really a thing worth considering. But as for the _expense_--in an affair of such magnitude, sir, I presume it would not be a matter of serious consideration." After some further conversation, the earl came plump upon the great pivot upon which the whole arrangement was to turn--settlements and jointures--oh, as to them, Titmouse, who was recovering from the shock of the discovery that his marriage, however it might degrade the Lady Cecilia, would not ennoble him--promised everything--would leave everything in the hands of his Lordship. Soon afterwards they separated; the earl suggesting to him, that probably in a matter of infinite delicacy, like that on which they had been conversing, he would keep his own counsel--to which also Titmouse pledged himself. Soon afterwards, and before seeing his daughter, with an anxious, but not an excited air, he ordered his horse, and took a long ride, accompanied only by his groom: and if ever in his whole life he had attempted serious REFLECTION, it was on the occasion of that same long, slow, and solitary ride; then, for the first time, he forgot his peerage, and thought only of the _man_--and the father.