“Look there now!—Strange creatures you men are! So like he looks to his poor father, who used to tell me that he loved to be contradicted, and yet who would not, I am sure, have lived three days with any woman who had ventured to contradict him directly. Whatever influence I obtained in his heart, and whatever happiness we enjoyed in our union, I attribute to my trusting to my observations on his character rather than to his own account of himself. Therefore I may be permitted to claim some judgment of what would suit your hereditary temper.”
“Certainly, ma’am, certainly. But to come to the point at once, may I ask this plain question—Do you, by these reflections, mean to allude to any particular persons? Is there any woman in the world you at this instant would wish me to marry?”
“Yes—Miss Walsingham.”
Mr. Beaumont started with joyful surprise, when his mother thus immediately pronounced the very name he wished to hear.
“You surprise and delight me, my dear mother!”
“Surprise!—How can that be?—Surely you must know my high opinion of Miss Walsingham. But——”
“But—you added but——”
“There is no woman who may not be taxed with a but—yet it is not for her friend to lower her merit. My only objection to her is—I shall infallibly affront you, if I name it.”
“Name it! name it! You will not affront me.”
“My only objection to her then is, her superiority. She is so superior, that, forgive me, I don’t know any man, yourself not excepted, who is at all her equal.”