At this point of the proceedings Manners was more amused than annoyed; for his own ugliness was no secret to himself, and he therefore knew well that it could be no secret to others. He laughed then at her Ladyship's scrutiny, and replied, "I was once considered very like my mother, Lady Barbara; but whatever resemblance I did possess was carried away by my enemy the small-pox." "Oh yes," she cried in return, "a dreadful disease that! Shocking the ravages it sometimes makes! I see you must have had it very bad." "Very bad, indeed, Lady Barbara," replied Colonel Manners with a laughing glance towards Miss Falkland; "and, what is worse, I had it at that period of life when one has just learned to value good looks, without having learned to despise them." "Oh, terrible!" exclaimed Lady Barbara, really commiserating him; "it must have made a terrible change in you, indeed. Dear me, what a pity!" Marian de Vaux was pained for Colonel Manners, and she now interposed with a few words, endeavouring to change the subject; but Lady Barbara was like a hollow square of infantry, and could _faire face partout_, so that poor Marian only drew the fire on herself. Lady Barbara answered her question, and then added, "And so I hear you are going to be married in a fortnight, Miss De Vaux. Well, I wish you happy, with all my heart; though marriage is always a great risk, God knows; is it not, Mr. Simpson?" "It is, indeed, my dear," replied Mr. Simpson, a quiet little man with much sterling good sense concealed under an insignificant exterior, and with a certain degree of subacid fun in his nature, which was habitually brought forth by the absurdities of his wife,--"it is, indeed, my dear;" and he finished with an audible and perhaps not unintentional sigh, which gave point to his reply. "But, for all that, it is a very good, and a very proper state, too," rejoined Lady Barbara, "and a very happy one, after all." "I am glad you find it so, my dear," said Mr. Simpson; but Lady Barbara went on, as usual, without attending to her husband. "I would advise all young people to marry," she said, "but not too young though,"--she herself had married at thirty-five--"not too young though, for then they only have such large families they do not know what to do with them. But now at a proper age every one ought to marry. Now, Colonel Manners, why are not you married? You ought to have been married before this." The reader knows that she was upon dangerous ground: but Manners was too good a politician to show that he was touched; and therefore he determined in reply to put that as a jest which had a good deal of serious earnest in it. "Oh, my dear madam," he answered, "you forget I am too ugly; I should never find a wife now."