"Fancy, all! You would love him with all a true wife's devotion ere long. In girls of your age, love always comes after marriage, it is unnecessary before it. You little know how dear and loveable he is, and how gallant too! What wrote Sir Ralph Abercrombie to the Duke of York concerning him, after that affair at the Helder? 'The bravery of the Honourable Captain Crawford, of the 3rd Guards, in the action of the 27th instant, forms one of the most brilliant episodes of the war in Holland!'" Flora gave an almost imperceptible shrug of her white shoulders, for praises of Cosmo's valour at the Helder had been a daily story of the old lady for some time past. Slight though the shrug and the smile that accompanied it, Lady Rohallion detected them, and her eyes sparkled brightly with anger. She arose with ineffable hauteur, and shook out her flounces, as a swan ruffles its pinions, to their fullest extent. "Miss Warrender," said she, with her hands folded before her, and her powdered head borne very erect indeed, "is it possible that this strange opposition alike to the earnest wishes of the living and of the dead, arises from a cause which I have hitherto disdained to approach or allude to--as a species of midsummer madness--a love for the luckless lad to whom for so many years we have extended the hand of protection, Quentin Kennedy?" At the name which concluded this formal exordium, a deep blush suffused the delicate neck of Flora; but, as her back was to the lighted candles, the questioner did not perceive it, though scrutinising her keenly. "And why, madam, may I not love poor Quentin, if I choose?" asked the wilful Flora, bluntly. "Because he is, as you justly named him, _poor_," replied the other, with calm asperity. "But I am rich," urged Flora, laughing through all her annoyance, with an irresistible desire to pique Lady Rohallion. "He is nameless." "How know we that, madam? Kennedy is as good a name as Warrender." "True, when borne by an Earl of Cassilis, by a Laird of Colzean, of Kilhenzie, or Dunure; but not by every landless waif who bears the name of the clan or family. God knoweth how in my heart I dearly love that boy; yet this fancy of yours passes all bounds of reason, and all my expectations, in its absurdity. I have destined you for my son, Cosmo, and none other shall have you!" she added, almost imperiously. "Destined," said Flora, with mingled laughter and chagrin, "because the march-dyke of Rohallion is also the march-dyke of Ardgour." "Nay, nay, think not so unworthily of us; we need to covet nothing and to court none; but destined you are, because it was your dear mother's dying wish." "To make me miserable?" "To make you happy, foolish girl; dare you speak of misery with _my_ son?" "So you would actually have me to marry a man I don't like, and scarcely ever saw? It is a common sacrifice in the great world, I am aware; but my sphere has been rather small----" "You would not marry a boy, surely?"