" I should be very sorry to keep you in suspense/' said Isabel. " Oh, don't mind. I would much rather have a good answer six months hence than a bad one to-day." " But it is very probaHle that even six months hence I should not be able to give you one that you would think good." " Why not, since you really like me ? " " Ah, you must never doubt of that," said Isabel. " Well, then, I don't see what more you ask ! " " It is not what I ask ; it is what I can give. I don't think I should suit you ; I really don't think I should." " You needn't bother about that ; that's my affair. You needn't be a better royalist than the king." " It is not only that," said Isabel ; " but I am not sure I wish to marry any one." "Very likely you don't. I have no doubt a great many women begin that way," said his lordship, who, be it averred, did not in the least believe in the axiom he thus beguiled his anxiety by uttering. " But they are frequently persuaded." " Ah, that is because they want to be ! " And Isabel lightly laughed. Her suitor's countenance fell, and he looked at her for a while in silence. " I'm afraid it's my being an Englishman that makes you hesitate," he said, presently. " I know your uncle thinks you ought to marry in your own country." Isabel listened to this assertion with some interest; it had never occurred to her that Mr. Touchett was likely to discuss her matrimonial prospects with Lord Warburton. " Has he told you that 1 " she asked. " I remember his making the remark ; he spoke perhaps of Americans generally." " He appears himself to have found it very pleasant to live in England," said Isabel, in a manner that might have seemed .a little perverse, but which expressed both her constant perception of her uncle's pictorial circumstances arid her general dis- position to elude any obligation to take a restricted view. It gave her companion hope, and he immediately exclaimed, warmly " Ah, my dear Miss Archer, old England is a very good sort of country, you know ! And it will be still better when we have furbished it up a little." " Oh, don't furbish it, Lord Warburton ; leave it alone ; I like it this way."
