"Good heavens! my lord, you frighten me! I never recollect to have said a single word against your son, as long as I have lived. Why should I?"
"Why, indeed!" said Lord Melbourne. "And, since there is nothing to be said against him, what excuse can you make for using him so ill?"
"I don't understand you one bit, my lord." The very idea of a father put me in a tremble.
"Why," said Lord Melbourne, "did you not turn the poor boy out of your house as soon as it was dark, although Craven was in town, and there was not the shadow of an excuse for such treatment?"
At this moment, and before I could recover from my surprise at the tenderness of some parents, Frederick Lamb, who was almost my shadow, joined us.
"Fred, my boy," said Lord Melbourne, "I'll leave you two together, and I fancy you'll find Miss Wilson more reasonable." He touched his hat to me, as he entered the little gate of the Pavilion, where we had remained stationary from the moment his lordship had accosted me.
Frederick Lamb laughed long, loud, and heartily, at his father's interference. So did I, the moment he was safely out of sight, and then I told him of my answer to the Prince's letter, at which he laughed still more. He was charmed with me, for refusing His Royal Highness.
"Not," said Frederick, "that he is not as handsome and graceful a man as any in England; but I hate the weakness of a woman who knows not how to refuse a prince, merely because he is a prince."
"It is something, too, to be of royal blood," answered I frankly; "and something more to be accomplished: but this posting after a man! I wonder what he could mean by it!"
Frederick Lamb now began to plead his own cause.