Lucretia reposed on the future with a calm and resolute confidence; and
her customary dissimulation closed like an unruffled sea over all the
undercurrents that met and played below. Still, Sir Miles's attention
once, however slightly, aroused to the recollection that Lucretia was at
the age when woman naturally meditates upon love and marriage, had
suggested, afresh and more vividly, a project which had before been
indistinctly conceived,--namely, the union of the divided branches of his
house, by the marriage of the last male of the Vernons with the heiress
of the St. Johns. Sir Miles had seen much of Vernon himself at various
intervals; he had been present at his christening, though he had refused
to be his godfather, for fear of raising undue expectations; he had
visited and munificently "tipped" him at Eton; he had accompanied him to
his quarters when he joined the prince's regiment; he had come often in
contact with him when, at the death of his father, Vernon retired from
the army and blazed in the front ranks of metropolitan fashion; he had
given him counsel and had even lent him money. Vernon's spendthrift
habits and dissipated if not dissolute life had certainly confirmed the
old baronet in his intentions to trust the lands of Laughton to the
lesser risk which property incurs in the hands of a female, if tightly
settled on her, than in the more colossal and multiform luxuries of an
expensive man; and to do him justice, during the flush of Vernon's
riotous career he had shrunk from the thought of confiding the happiness
of his niece to so unstable a partner. But of late, whether from his
impaired health or his broken fortunes, Vernon's follies had been less
glaring. He had now arrived at the mature age of thirty-three, when wild
oats may reasonably be sown. The composed and steadfast character of
Lucretia might serve to guide and direct him; and Sir Miles was one of
those who hold the doctrine that a reformed rake makes the best husband.
Add to this, there was nothing in Vernon's reputation--once allowing that
his thirst for pleasure was slaked--which could excite serious