"To all this your letter has given altogether a different aspect. I think that I am as little likely as another to spend my time or thoughts in looking for external advantages, but I am as much alive as another to the great honour to myself and advantage to my child of the marriage which is suggested to her. I do not know how any more secure prospect of happiness could be opened to her than that which such a marriage offers. I have thought myself bound to give her your letter to read because her heart and her imagination have naturally been affected by what your son said to her. I think I may say of my girl that none sweeter, none more innocent, none less likely to be over-anxious for such a prospect could exist. But her heart has been touched; and though she had not dreamt of him but as an acquaintance till he came here and told his own tale, and though she then altogether declined to entertain his proposal when it was made, now that she has learnt so much more through you, she is no longer indifferent. This, I think, you will find to be natural.
"I and her mother also are of course alive to the dangers of a long engagement, and the more so because your son has still before him a considerable portion of his education. Had he asked advice either of you or of me he would of course have been counselled not to think of marriage as yet. But the very passion which has prompted him to take this action upon himself shows,—as you yourself say of him,—that he has a stronger will than is usual to be found at his years. As it is so, it is probable that he may remain constant to this as to a fixed idea.
"I think you will now understand my mind and Mary's and her mother's." Lord Bracy as he read this declared to himself that though the Doctor's mind was very clear, Mrs. Wortle, as far as he knew, had no mind in the matter at all. "I would suggest that the affair should remain as it is, and that each of the young people should be made to understand that any future engagement must depend, not simply on the persistency of one of them, but on the joint persistency of the two.
"If, after this, Lady Bracy should be pleased to receive Mary at Carstairs, I need not say that Mary will be delighted to make the visit.—Believe me, my dear Lord Bracy, yours most faithfully.
"Jeffrey Wortle."
The Earl, when he read this, though there was not a word in it to which he could take exception, was not altogether pleased. "Of course it will be an engagement," he said to his wife.
"Of course it will," said the Countess. "But then Carstairs is so very much in earnest. He would have done it for himself if you hadn't done it for him."
"At any rate the Doctor is a gentleman," the Earl said, comforting himself.