"No," replied he, smiling again. "But I intend to send you home. A sentence, indeed, which in this dissipated age is thought the worst sort of exile. You have now been absent six or seven months. This absence has been hitherto justifiable. It is time to return to your affairs, to your duties. Both the one and the other always slide into some disorder by a too long separation from the place of their legitimate exercise. Your steward will want inspection, your tenants may want redress, your poor always want assistance."
Seeing me look irresolute, "I must I find," added he, with the kindest look and voice, "be compelled to the inhospitable necessity of turning you out of doors."
"Live without Lucilla three months!" said I. "Allow me, sir, at least to remain a few weeks longer at the Grove?"
"Love is a bad calculator," replied Mr. Stanley, "I believe he never learned arithmetic. Don't you know that as you are enjoined a three month's banishment, that the sooner you go, the sooner you will return? And that however long your stay now is, your three months' absence will still remain to be accomplished. To speak seriously, Lucilla's sense of propriety, as well as that of Mrs. Stanley, will not allow you to remain much longer under the same roof, now that the motive will become so notorious. Besides that, an act of self-denial is a good principle to set out upon, business and duties will fill up your active hours, and an intercourse of letters with her you so reluctantly quit, will not only give an interest to your leisure, but put you both still more completely in possession of each other's character!"
"I will set out to-morrow, sir," said I, earnestly, "in order to begin to hasten the day of my return."
"Now you are as much too precipitate on the other side," replied he. "A few days, I think, may be permitted, without any offense to Lucilla's delicacy. This even her mother pleads for."
"With what excellence will this blessed union give me an alliance!" replied I. "I will go directly, and thank Mrs. Stanley for this goodness."
I found Mrs. Stanley and her daughter together, with whom I had a long and interesting conversation. They took no small pains to convince my judgment, that my departure was perfectly proper. My will however continued rebellions. But as I had been long trained to the habit of submitting my will to my reason, I acquiesced, though not without murmuring, and, as they told me, with a very bad grace. I informed Mrs. Stanley of an intimation I had received from Sir George Aston of his attachment to Ph[oe]be, and of his mother's warm approbation of his choice, adding that he alleged her extreme youth, as the ground of his deferring to express his hope that his plea might one day be received with favor.
"He forgot to allege his own youth," replied she, "which is a reason almost equally cogent."
Miss Stanley and I agreed that a connection more desirable in all respects could not be expected.