"You'll never convince me that any but a fool can be in love," cried the Doctor, his visage assuming a darker purple as the argument advanced.
"Then you must rank Lord Glenallan, with his five and twenty thousand a year, amongst the number, for he is desperately in love, I assure you."
"As to that, Lord Glenallan, or any man with his fortune, may be whatever he chooses. He has a right to be in love. He can afford to be in love."
"I have heard much of the torments of love," said Lady Emily; "but I never heard it rated as a luxury before. I hope there is no chance of your being made Premier, otherwise I fear we should have a tax upon love-marriages immediately."
"It would be greatly for the advantage of the nation, as well as the comfort of individuals, if there was," returned the Doctor. "Many a pleasant fellow has been lost to society by what you call a love-marriage. I speak from experience. I was obliged to drop the oldest friend I had upon his making one of your love-marriages."
"What! you were afraid of the effects of evil example?" asked Lady
Emily.
"No—it was not for that; but he asked me to take a family dinner with him one day, and I, without knowing anything of the character of the woman he had married, was weak enough to go. I found a very so-so tablecloth and a shoulder of mutton, which ended our acquaintance. I never entered his door after it. In fact, no man's happiness is proof against dirty tablecloths and bad dinners; and you may take my word for it, Lady Emily, these are the invariable accompaniments of your love-marriages."
"Pshaw! that is only amongst the bourgeois," said Lady Emily
affectedly; "that is not the sort of ménage I mean to have.
Here is to be the style of my domestic establishment;" and she repeated
Shenstone's beautiful pastoral—
"My banks they are furnished with bees," etc.,
till she came to—