The period at which youth puts on manhood varies very much in different individuals, and Henry Hayley looked and was two years nearer maturity at fourteen than his young companion, Charles Marston, who was not quite a year younger. Nevertheless, Lady Monkton always saw him the companion of her daughter with pleasure. She let things take their course, and did not even think fit to foresee a time when the intimacy must receive a check. This very unworldly view depended upon her own character. Though a sensible girl and a very sensible woman, she had never had the slightest share of ambition. She considered that happiness consists of happiness; which, simple as the conclusion may seem, is a view that very few people indeed take. She did not believe that she would have been in the slightest degree happier with her own husband if he had been a peer: she was sure she should not have been less happy if he had been a merchant; and she left Maria to choose for herself, without the slightest precaution as to how she might choose, except inasmuch as she resolved that she should never have the opportunity, if she could prevent it, of choosing a Sir John Fleetwood. Not so, however, Lady Mellent, who became somewhat uneasy at young Henry Hayley's constant association with her daughter. It is true that she was only ten years of age; it is true that the lad's boyish prepossessions were evidently in favour of Maria Monkton; but still she thought it right to represent to Lord Mellent that "Henry was really growing quite a young man;" that "boyish intimacies often ripened into more tender feelings;" that "as Anne grew up, it would not do to have such a thing as an attachment even reported between her and young Hayley;" with a number of the usual etceteras. But her representations had not the least effect upon Lord Mellent. Henry was now his great favourite. He took him out to shoot with him; he mounted him; he took him out to hunt; and he never was happier than when the lad was with him. His society also was of great advantage to Henry Hayley; for, though Lord Mellent had in his young days been both an extravagant and a somewhat dissipated man, yet there was at bottom a fund of strong good sense and high principle in his character, which had shown itself in a complete change of habits and pursuits after his marriage--in the casting off of all dissolute associates, and the abandonment of all evil or dangerous customs. Lady Mellent felt a little piqued perhaps at her husband's great fondness for the handsome boy. She felt sure, and perhaps not unreasonably, that Lord Mellent regretted he had not a son such as Henry Hayley; but she was too good-humoured and too indolent to press her opinions after they had once been expressed, and everything went on as before.