"Thank you, sir; I am much obliged to you for the interest you have always shown me."
"No need of thanks, Harry; it is only what your father's son had a right to expect from me."
A silence of a moment ensued, when Mr. Henley again spoke.
"You are seven-and-twenty, you say, Hazlehurst?—let me give you a piece of advice—don't let the next ten years pass without marrying."
"I was just about making up my mind, at Rio, to be a gay bachelor, my dear sir," said Harry.
"Yes; I remember to have heard you say something of the kind; but take my advice, and marry, unless you have some very good reason for not doing so."
Hazlehurst made no answer, but helped himself to another supply of nuts. "More easily said than done, perhaps," he observed.
"Nonsense!—There are many amiable young women who would suit you; and it would be strange if you could not meet with one that would have you. Some pretty, lady-like girl. I dare say you know twenty such, in Philadelphia, or even here, at Saratoga."
"Five hundred, no doubt," replied Harry; "but suppose the very woman I should fancy, would not fancy me." Whether he was thinking of his past experience with Jane, or not, we cannot say.
"I don't see that a woman can find any reasonable fault with you—you do well enough, my good fellow, as the world goes; and I am sure there are, as you say, five hundred young women to choose from. In that point a man has the best of it; young girls of a certain class, if not angels, are at least generally unexceptionable; but there are many men, unhappily, whose moral reputations are, and should be obstacles in a woman's eyes."