a rheumatic fever; yet it may seem strange that Lady Clonbrony should be
so blind and deaf as neither to see nor hear all this time; that, having
lived so long in the world, it should never occur to her that it was
rather imprudent to have a young lady, not eighteen, nursing her--and
such a young lady!--when her son, not one-and-twenty--and such a
son!--came to visit her daily. But, so it was. Lady Clonbrony knew
nothing of love--she had read of it, indeed, in novels, which sometimes
for fashion's sake she had looked at, and over which she had been
obliged to doze; but this was only love in books--love in real life she
had never met with--in the life she led, how should she? She had heard
of its making young people, and old people even, do foolish things; but
those were foolish people; and if they were worse than foolish, why it
was shocking, and nobody visited them. But Lady Clonbrony had not, for
her own part, the slightest, notion how people could be brought to this
pass, nor how anybody out of Bedlam could prefer to a good house, a
decent equipage, and a proper establishment, what is called love in
a cottage. As to Colambre, she had too good an opinion of his
understanding--to say nothing of his duty to his family, his pride, his
rank, and his being her son--to let such an idea cross her imagination.
As to her niece; in the first place, she was her niece, and first
cousins should never marry, because they form no new connexions to
strengthen the family interest, or raise its consequence. This doctrine
her ladyship had repeated for years so often and so dogmatically, that
she conceived it to be incontrovertible, and of as full force as any law
of the land, or as any moral or religious obligation. She would as
soon have suspected her niece of an intention of stealing her diamond
necklace as of purloining Colambre's heart, or marrying this heir of the
house of Clonbrony.

Miss Nugent was so well apprised, and so thoroughly convinced of all