"Wait a little--wait a little" said Mrs. Hazleton with a significant nod of the head. "I have no mysteries, my dear friend. I have nothing to conceal or to hold back. You are going, however, to act upon information which is very doubtful. I believe that you have been deceived, whoever has told you that Mr. Marlow is the heir to the Earl of Launceston, and it is but an act of friendship on my part to procure you more certain intelligence. You shall have it I promise you, before four and twenty hours are over, and all I ask is that you will not commit yourself by giving your consent till that intelligence has been obtained. You cannot say that you consent if Mr. Marlow proves to be the heir of that nobleman, but will not consent if such be not the case.--That would never do, and therefore your consent would be irrevocable. But on the other hand there can be no great harm in waiting four and twenty hours at the utmost. I have plenty of books of heraldry and genealogy, which will soon let me into the facts, and you shall know them plainly and straightforwardly at once. You can then decide and state your decision firmly and calmly, with just reason and upon good grounds." Lady Hastings was silent. She saw that Mrs. Hazleton had detected the motives of her sudden change of views, and she did not much like being detected. She had fully made up her mind, too, that Marlow was to become Earl and her daughter Countess of Launceston, and the very thought of such not being the result was a sort of half disappointment to her. Now Lady Hastings did not like being disappointed at all, and moreover she had made up her mind to have a scene of reconciliation, and tenderness, and gratitude with her husband and her daughter, from which--being of a truly affectionate disposition--she thought she should derive great pleasure. Thus she hesitated for a moment as to what she should answer, and Mrs. Hazleton, determined not to let the effect of what she had said subside before she had bound her more firmly, added, after waiting a short time for a reply, "you will promise me, will you not, that you will not distinctly recall your injunction, and give your consent to the marriage till you have seen me again; provided I do not keep you in suspense more than four and twenty hours? It is but reasonable too, and just, and you would, I am sure, repent bitterly if you were to find afterwards that your consent to this very unequal marriage had been obtained by deceit, and that you bad been made a mere fool of--Really at the very first sight, even if I had not good reason to believe that this story of the heirship is either a mistake or a misrepresentation, it seems so like a stage trick--the cunning plot of some knavish servant or convenient friend in a drama--that I should be very doubtful. Will you not promise me then?"