“Now do be serious. I wonder how you can joke on such a subject, with all your debts. I’m sure I feel them heavy enough, if you don’t. You see Lord Ballindine was refused—I may say he was refused—before we heard about that poor boy’s unfortunate death. It was the very morning we heard of it, three or four hours before the messenger came, that Fanny had expressed her resolution to declare it off, and commissioned me to tell him so. And, therefore, of course, the two things can’t have the remotest reference to each other.”
“I see. There are, or have been, two Fanny Wyndhams—separate persons, though both wards of your lordship. Lord Ballindine was engaged to the girl who had a brother; but he can have no possible concern with Fanny Wyndham, the heiress, who has no brother.”
“How can you be so unfeeling?—but you may pay your debts in your own way. You won’t ever listen to what I have to say! I should have thought that, as your father, I might have considered myself entitled to more respect from you.”
“Indeed, my lord, I’m all respect and attention, and I won’t say one more word till you’ve finished.”
“Well—you must see, there can be no objection on the score of Lord Ballindine?”
“Oh, none at all.”
“And then, where could Fanny wish for a better match than yourself? it would be a great thing for her, and the match would be, in all things, so—so respectable, and just what it ought to be; and your mother would be so delighted, and so should I, and—”
“Her fortune would so nicely pay all my debts.”
“Exactly. Of course, I should take care to have your present income—five thousand a year—settled on her, in the shape of jointure; and I’m sure that would be treating her handsomely. The interest of her fortune would not be more than that.”
“And what should we live on?”