ever attend on wealth."

"Oh!" groaned Randal, as if already bowed beneath the cares, and
sympathizing with the poets.

"And now, let me present you to your betrothed." Although poor Randal
had been remorselessly hurried along what Schiller calls the "gamut of
feeling," during the last three minutes, down to the deep chord of
despair at the abrupt intelligence that his betrothed was no heiress
after all; thence ascending to vibrations of pleasant doubt as to the
unborn usurper of her rights, according to the prophecies of parturitive
science; and lastly, swelling into a concord of all sweet thoughts at the
assurance that, come what might, she would be a wealthier bride than a
peer's son could discover in the matrimonial Potosi of Lombard Street,--
still the tormented lover was not there allowed to repose his exhausted
though ravished soul. For, at the idea of personally confronting the
destined bride--whose very existence had almost vanished from his mind's
eye, amidst the golden showers that it saw falling divinely round her--
Randal was suddenly reminded of the exceeding bluntness with which, at
their last interview, it had been his policy to announce his suit, and of
the necessity of an impromptu falsetto suited to the new variations that
tossed him again to and fro on the merciless gamut. However, he could
not recoil from her father's proposition, though, in order to prepare
Riccabocca for Violante's representation, he confessed pathetically that
his impatience to obtain her consent and baffle Peschiera had made him
appear a rude and presumptuous wooer. The philosopher, who was disposed
to believe one kind of courtship to be much the same as another, in cases
where the result of all courtships was once predetermined, smiled
benignly, patted Randal's thin cheek, with a "Pooh, pooh, /pazzie!/" and
left the room to summon Violante.