"What are you going to do for her, Sir Oswald?"
"I have provided for her," he replied.
"Darrell Court, then, and all its rich revenues go to your wife, I presume?"
"Yes, to my wife," said Sir Oswald.
"Unconditionally?" asked the general.
"Most certainly," was the impatient reply.
"Well, my friend," said the general, "in this world every one does as he or she likes; but to disinherit that girl, with the face and spirit of a true Darrell, and to put a fair, amiable blonde stranger in her place, was, to say the least, eccentric—the world will deem it so, at any rate. If I were forty years younger I would win Pauline Darrell, and make her love me. But we must join the ladies—they will think us very remiss."
"Sweet smiles, no mind, an amiable manner, no intellect, prettiness after the fashion of a Parisian doll, to be preferred to that noble, truthful, queenly girl! Verily tastes differ," thought the general, as he watched the two, contrasted them, and lost himself in wonder over his friend's folly.
He took his leave soon afterward, gravely musing on what he could not understand—why his old friend had done what seemed to him a rash, ill-judged deed.
He left Sir Oswald in a state of great discomfort. Of course he loved his wife—loved her with a blind infatuation that did more honor to his heart than his head—but he had always relied so implicitly on the general's judgment. He found himself half wishing that in this, the crowning action of his life, he had consulted his old friend.