“So much attached to him that within a year of his death she was pining for the sight of a ballroom, and within four is planning to marry a worthless fribble! It will not do, Mama!”

“Very well, my dear, but we are talking of your marriage, not Harry’s, are we not?”

“True! Well, I realized—oh, above a year ago!—that it was my duty to marry. Not so much for the sake of an heir, because I have one already, but—”

“Sylvester, don’t put that thought into Edmund’s head!”

He laughed. “Much he would care! His ambition is to become a mail-coachman—or it was until Keighley let him have the yard of tin for a plaything! Now he cannot decide whether to be a coachman or a guard. Pretty flat he would think it to be told that he would be obliged instead to step into my shoes!”

She smiled. “Yes, now he would, but later—”

“Well, that’s one of my reasons, Mama. If I mean to marry I ought, I think, to do so before Edmund is old enough to think his nose has been put out of joint. So I began some months ago to look about me.”

“You are the oddest creature! Next you will tell me you made out a list of the qualities your wife must possess!”

“More or less,” he admitted. “You may laugh, Mama, but you’ll agree that certain qualities are indispensable! She must be well-born, for instance. I don’t mean necessarily a great match, but a girl of my own order.”

“Ah, yes, I agree with that! And next?”

“Well, a year ago I should have said she must be beautiful,” he replied meditatively. (She is not a beauty, thought the Duchess.) “But I’m inclined to think now that it is more important that she should be intelligent. I don’t think I could tolerate a hen-witted wife. Besides, I don’t mean to foist another fool on to you.”

“I am very much obliged to you!” she said, a good deal entertained. “Clever, but not beautiful: very well! Continue!”