"Take care, Harry! Take care!" cried Dr. Wilton, with a warning shake of the head--"Many a man has frittered away his happiness with just such sentences as that. But I will insure you, that your title will make no difference in the views of Blanche Delaware; so that, if you have no other recommendation than that, you may give yourself up to despair. But you young men are so impatient. Here you are fretting yourself to death, because you do not discover the residence of your ladye-love as soon as you think fit to seek it."
"Indeed, my dear sir, you are quite mistaken," answered Beauchamp. "My chief desire is to see William Delaware and his father; and--showing them that every difficulty which surrounded them in life is now removed--to share in the happiness that such a change must occasion them--that is all, indeed!"
"Poo! my dear Harry! Nonsense!" cried his old preceptor. "I never saw a man yet who could cheat his own understanding so completely as you sometimes do. You are just as anxious to see Blanche Delaware as ever man was to see the woman he loved best in the world. But we will find her, my dear boy! We will find her!"
Their search, however, in the neighborhood of Emberton, proved entirely in vain. Neither agent nor farmers knew any thing of the track of Sir Sidney and Miss Delaware; and at the end of a week, Beauchamp's last hope was reduced to the information possessed by Mrs. Darlington.
CHAPTER XLI.
"Maria!" said the Earl of Ashborough, addressing Miss Beauchamp on the morning after his return from Emberton, "what say you, dear sister, to a tour on the continent for six months or a year?"
"Why, personally, I should have no objection, Henry," answered Miss Beauchamp; "but you forget, my dear brother, there are nine very respectable gentlemen, young and old, expiring for me at this present moment. Now, what would they do if I were to go abroad?"
"Expire for somebody else, I suppose," replied Beauchamp; "I can not perceive any other event."
"Henry! Henry!" cried his sister, "you are perfectly insulting. But to tell you the truth, I think it is the best thing you can do, to travel to the south; for during the past month you have looked so like a gambler, or a member of the Lower House, or some of those people that sit up all night, and come home pale and thin in the morning, that I am ashamed to be seen with you. But seriously, I will go where you like, noble brother," she added, leaning her two hands half affectionately, half maliciously, on Beauchamp's arm, and looking up in his face; "I will go where you like, and help you to search for sweet Blanche Delaware, with all my eyes."
Beauchamp smiled, much less annoyed than his sister had expected; but gliding his arm round her waist he held her tight, while he answered, "Will you, indeed, Maria? Well, then, as a reward for your disinterested kindness, I trust you may find William Delaware with his sister."