Lord Cashel’s plans were certainly not lucky. It was not that sufficient care was not used in laying them, nor sufficient caution displayed in maturing them. He passed his time in care and caution; he spared no pains in seeing that the whole machinery was right; he was indefatigable in deliberation, diligent in manoeuvring, constant in attention. But, somehow, he was unlucky; his schemes were never successful. In the present instance he was peculiarly unfortunate, for everything went wrong with him. He had got rid of an obnoxious lover, he had coaxed over his son, he had spent an immensity of money, he had undergone worlds of trouble and self-restraint;—and then, when he really began to think that his ward’s fortune would compensate him for this, his own family came to him, one after another, to assure him that he was completely mistaken—that it was utterly impossible—that such a thing as a family marriage between the two cousins could never take place, and indeed, ought not to be thought of. Lady Selina gave him the first check. On the morning on which Lord Kilcullen made his offer, she paid her father a solemn visit in his book-room, and told him exactly what she had before told her mother; assured him that Fanny could not be induced, at any rate at present, to receive her cousin as her lover; whispered to him, with unfeigned sorrow and shame, that Fanny was still madly in love with Lord Ballindine; and begged him to induce her brother to postpone his offer, at any rate for some months. “I hate Lord Ballindine’s very name,” said the earl, petulant with irritation. “We none of us approve of him, papa: we don’t think of supposing that he could now be a fitting husband for Fanny, or that they could possibly ever be married. Of course it’s not to be thought of. But if you would advise Adolphus not to be premature, he might, in the end, be more successful.” “Kilcullen has made his own bed and he must lie in it; I won’t interfere between them,” said the angry father. “But if you were only to recommend delay,” suggested the daughter; “a few months’ delay; think how short a time Harry Wyndham has been dead!” Lord Cashel knew that delay was death in this case, so he pished, and hummed, and hawed; quite lost the dignity on which he piqued himself, and ended by declaring that he would not interfere; that they might do as they liked; that young people would not be guided, and that he would not make himself unhappy about them. And so, Lady Selina, crestfallen and disappointed, went away. Then, Lady Cashel, reflecting on what her daughter had told her, and yet anxious that the marriage should, if possible, take place at some time or other, sent Griffiths down to her lord, with a message—“Would his lordship be kind enough to step up-stairs to her ladyship?” Lord Cashel went up, and again had all the difficulties of the case opened out before him.