'I see I have made a fool of myself again, and that you have a right to be very angry with me.'
'Not quite,' said Mrs. Ponsonby, smiling, 'but I am going to give you some advice. Settle your mind as to Miss Conway. Your father is beginning to perceive that his distrust was undeserved; he has promised me not to object in case it should be for your true happiness; and I do believe, for my own part, that, in some respects, she is better fitted for his daughter-in-law than my poor Mary.'
'No one ever was half as good as Mary!' cried Louis. 'And this is what you tell me!'
'Mind, I don't tell you to propose to her, nor to commit yourself in any way: I only tell you to put yourself in a position to form a reasonable judgment of your own feelings. That is due to her, to yourself, and to your wife, be she who she may.'
Louis sighed, and presently added, smiling, 'I am not going to rave about preferences for another; but I do want to know whether anything can be done for poor Jem Frost.'
'Ha! has he anything of this kind on his mind?'
'He does it in grand style—disconsolate, frantic, and frosty; but he puzzles me completely by disclosing nothing but that he has no hope, and thinks me his rival. Can nothing be done?'
'No, Louis,' said Mrs. Ponsonby, decidedly; 'I have no idea that there is anything in that quarter. What may be on his mind, I cannot tell: I am sure that he is not on Mary's.'
Louis rose. 'I have tired you,' he said, 'and you are very patient with my fooleries.'
'You have been very patient with many a lecture of mine, Louis.'