Lady Wetheral felt it was vain to utter lamentations: she must lie up, and take care of herself, and avoid the children's noise, and do exactly as she had done before under the same affliction. It _might_ prove an heir. If so, her ladyship would not complain: a son would secure the entailed property, and keep up the family name and honours. The name of Wetheral would be extinguished, unless a son resumed the honourable title after poor Sir John was gone, and a fine aristocratic-looking boy ranging through the castle would be a proud sight, certainly. He might marry a duke's heiress. Yes, a magnificent boy _would_ be welcomed. Nothing could exceed Lady Wetheral's chagrin at giving birth in due time to a daughter. Her anger was scarcely repressed by her command of temper, or by the lectures of her unworldly husband. Lady Wetheral loved her husband with the utmost propriety, too, and never acted in decided opposition to his expressed wishes, but she turned in disgust from his arguments, and generally contrived to manœuvre his good nature into an unwilling approval of her plans, by unceasing fluency, and a code of principles, which bewildered and silenced him. Sir John Wetheral only endured the fate of many husbands, who are linked with "remarkably chatty clever women:" he objected, demurred, and gradually yielded to views which he disapproved, but could never successfully combat. His first visit to his lady's chamber, after the unwelcome little stranger's appearance upon the stage of life, was characteristic, and displayed the principles which influenced the heart and conduct of each parent. "Well, Sir John, shake hands, love; but we need not congratulate each other. I did hope a son might have repaid me for all this annoyance, but here is another wretched girl, and the little animal looks determined to live." "Glad of it, Gertrude," and Sir John Wetheral stroked its little cheek gently and fondly. "How can you say so, my love! I have made arrangements for my four girls, which had comfortably and completely satisfied my mind, but this child is an excrescence, which destroys my comfort entirely." "Include her in your arrangements, my dear." "Nonsense, Sir John! Anna Maria will be out in five years, and I have arranged that she shall marry Tom Pynsent." "Tom devil!" cried Sir John Wetheral, impatiently. Lady Wetheral possessed the enviable faculty of becoming deaf to observations and epithets, which did not harmonize with her opinions. She did not, therefore, hear her husband's exclamation, but proceeded in a languid tone of voice.