"Ah!" he drew a long breath. "But we can't always have love. The other requisites are perhaps more easily found."
"Have you found them, Philip?" The mother's voice quivered as she asked the question. He did not answer it immediately—he stood looking at the ground for some little time.
"My mind is made up," he said at last, slowly and quietly; "I know what I want, and I think that I have found it. Mother, I am going to ask Miss Colwyn to be my wife."
If a thunderbolt had fallen at her feet, Lady Ashley could not have been more amazed. She sat silent, rigid, incapable of a reply.
"I have seen something of her, and I have heard more," her son went on, soberly. "She is of sterling worth. She has intellect, character, affection: what can we want more? She is attractive, if not exactly beautiful, and she is good—thoroughly good and true."
"But her connections, Philip—her relations," gasped Lady Ashley.
"It will be easy enough to do something for them. Of course they will have to be provided for—away from Beaminster, if possible. She is an orphan, remember: these are only her half sisters and brothers."
"There is the dreadful stepmother!"
"I think we can manage her. These points do not concern the main issue, mother. Will you receive her as your daughter if I bring Janetta Colwyn here as my wife?"
Lady Ashley had put her handkerchief to her eyes. "I will do anything to please you, Philip," she said, almost inaudibly; "but I cannot pretend that this is anything but a disappointment."