in youth, with an unlimited liberty to judge and act for yourself. Your
mother's system of education came, alas! more from her heart than her
head. Captain Walsingham himself cannot be more sensible of my errors
than I am."

"Captain Walsingham, believe me, mother, never mentioned this in
reproach to you. He is not a man to teach a son to see his mother's
errors--if she had any. He always spoke of you with the greatest
respect. And since I must, at my own expense, do him justice, it was, I
well remember, upon some occasion where I spoke too hastily, and
insisted upon my will in opposition to yours, madam, that Captain
Walsingham took me aside, and represented to me the fault into which my
want of command over myself had betrayed me. This he did so forcibly,
that I have never from that hour to this (I flatter myself) on any
material occasion, forgotten the impression he made on my mind. But,
madam, I interrupt you: you were going to give me your advice about--"

"No, no--no advice--no advice; you are, in my opinion, fully adequate to
the direction of your own conduct. I was merely going to suggest, that,
since you have not been accustomed to control from a mother, and since
you have, thank Heaven! a high spirit, that would sooner break than
bend, it must be essential to your happiness to have a wife of a
compliant, gentle temper; not fond of disputing the right, or attached
to her own opinions; not one who would be tenacious of rule, and
unseasonably inflexible."

"Unseasonably inflexible! Undoubtedly, ma'am. Yet I should despise a
mean-spirited wife."

"I am sure you would. But compliance that proceeds from affection, you