This last argument was decisive, and I accordingly sat down and wrote, in mamma's name, a very stiff acknowledgment of the receipt of his letter, and an equally cold refusal of the honor it tendered for our acceptance. We all agreed that Cary should hear nothing whatever of the matter, but, as Fra Giacomo said, "we 'd keep the disgrace for our own hearts." I own to you, Kitty, that if the religious question could be got over, I do not think the thing so inadmissible. Cary is evidently not destined to advance our family interests; had she even the capacity, she lacks the ambition. Her tastes are humble, commonplace, and--shall I say it?--vulgar. It gives her no pleasure to move in high society, and she esteems the stupid humdrum of domestic life as the very supreme of happiness. With such tastes this old Captain--he is five-and-thirty at least--would perhaps have suited her perfectly, and his intolerable mother been quite a companion. Their small fortune, too, would have consigned them to some cheap, out-of-the-way place, where we should not have met; and, in fact, the arrangement might have combined a very fair share of advantage. Fra G., however, had decided the matter on higher grounds, and there is no more to be said about it. There is another letter come by this post, too, from Lord George, dearest! He is to arrive to-night, if he can get horses. He is full of some wonderful tournament about to be held at Genoa,--a spectacle to be given by the city to the King, which is to attract all the world thither; and Lord G. writes to say that we have n't a moment to lose in securing accommodation at the hotel. Little suspecting the frame of mind his communication is to find us in, and that, in place of doughty deeds and chivalrous exploits, our thoughts are turned to fastings, mortifications, and whipcord! Oh, how I shudder at the ridicule with which he will assail us, and tremble for my own constancy under the raillery he will shower on us! I never dreaded his coming before, and would give worlds now that anything could prevent his arrival. How reconcile his presence with that of Fra Giacomo? How protect the priest from the overt quizzings of my Lord? and how rescue his Lordship from the secret machinations of the "father?"? are difficulties that I know not how to face. Mamma, besides, is now so totally under priestly guidance that she would sacrifice the whole peerage for a shaving of a saint's shin-bone! There will not be even time left me to concert measures with Lord G. The moment he enters the house he'll see the "altered temper of our ways" in a thousand instances. Relics, missals, beads, and rosaries have replaced Gavarni's etchings,--"Punch," and the "Illustration." Charms and amulets blessed by popes occupy the places of cigar-holders, pipe-sticks, and gutta-percha drolleries. The "Stabat Mater" has usurped the seat of "Casta Diva" on the piano, and a number of other unmistakable signs point to our reformed condition.