If Miss Lucy Ashton should change her mind
on a subject of such delicacy, I trust my friends will be silent on my
disappointment, and I shall know how to make my enemies so."
"Spoke like a gallant young nobleman," said the Marquis; "for my part, I
have that regard for you, that I should be sorry the thing went on. This
Sir William Ashton was a pretty enough pettifogging kind of a lawyer
twenty years ago, and betwixt battling at the bar and leading in
committees of Parliament he has got well on; the Darien matter lent him
a lift, for he had good intelligence and sound views, and sold out in
time; but the best work is had out of him. No government will take him
at his own, or rather his wife's extravagant, valuation; and betwixt his
indecision and her insolence, from all I can guess, he will outsit his
market, and be had cheap when no one will bid for him. I say nothing
of Miss Ashton; but I assure you, a connexion with her father will be
neither useful nor ornamental, beyond that part of your father's spoils
which he may be prevailed upon to disgorge by way of tocher-good; and
take my word for it, you will get more if you have spirit to bell the
cat with him in the House of Peers.
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