Mr Milborne, being quite unblessed by the worldly wisdom which characterized his spouse, had no sooner grasped the purpose of his visit than he suggested vaguely, and not very hopefully, that his lordship had better speak to Isabella himself. “For I’m sure I don’t know, Anthony,” he had said, looking doubtfully at the Viscount. “There’s no saying what may be in their heads, no saying at all!”

Correctly divining this cryptic utterance to refer to his wife and daughter, his lordship had said: “At all events, you’ve no objection, sir, have you?”

“No,” replied Mr Milborne. “That is — Well, no, I suppose I don’t object. But you had best see Isabella for yourself!”

So the Viscount was ushered into the Beauty’s presence before she had time even to draw down the blind against the too-searching light of day, and had plunged without the slightest preamble into the first offer of marriage he had ever made.

Miss Milborne found herself in the unhappy predicament of not knowing her own mind. The Viscount had been one of her acknowledged suitors for the past year, and the fact of her having known him almost from the cradle did not blind her to his charms. He was a handsome young blade, wild enough to intrigue the female fancy, and if not as brilliant a match as the Duke of Severn, who had lately shown flattering symptoms of being on the verge of declaring himself, at least he was much more presentable — his grace being a stolid young man inclined to corpulency. On the other hand, the Viscount was by no means so devout a lover as his friend Lord Wrotham, who had several times offered to blow his brains out, if such a violent act would afford her pleasure. In fact, the suspicion had more than once crossed Miss Milborne’s mind that the Viscount had joined the throng of her admirers for no better reason than that he was never one to be out of the mode. His professed adoration had not so far led him to abandon the pursuit of opera dancers and Cyprians, or to rectify those faults of character to which Miss Milborne had more than once taken exception.