"No, not especially. He and I have never pulled well together; but still I pity him deeply."
"He is not my cousin, but I know him better than you do, Harry. He will not feel much himself, and his sorrow will be for his heir, not for his son. He is a man whose happiness does not depend on the life or death of any one. He likes some people, as he once liked me; but I do not think that he ever loved any human being. He will get over it, and he will simply wish that Hermy may die, that he may marry another wife. Harry, I know him so well!"
"Archie will marry now," said Harry.
"Yes; if he can get any one to have him. There are very few men who can't get wives, but I can fancy Archie Clavering to be one of them. He has not humility enough to ask the sort of girl who would be glad to take him. Now, with his improved prospects, he will want a royal princess or something not much short of it. Money, rank, and blood might have done before, but he'll expect youth, beauty, and wit now, as well as the other things. He may marry after all, for he is just the man to walk out of a church some day with the cookmaid under his arm as his wife."
"Perhaps he may find something between a princess and a cookmaid."
"I hope, for your sake, he may not;—neither a princess nor a cookmaid, nor anything between."
"He has my leave to marry to-morrow, Lady Ongar. If I had my wish, Hugh should have his house full of children."
"Of course that is the proper thing to say, Harry."
"I won't stand that from you, Lady Ongar. What I say, I mean; and no one knows that better than you."
"Won't you, Harry? From whom, then, if not from me? But come, I will do you justice, and believe you to be simple enough to wish anything of the kind. The sort of castle in the air which you build, is not one to be had by inheritance, but to be taken by storm. You must fight for it."