Caroline Waddington was at Hadley when she received and accepted the proposal made to her by Sir Henry Harcourt. It may be conceived that the affair was arranged without any very great amount of romance. Sir Henry indeed was willing, in a hurried manner, to throw himself at the lady's feet, to swear by her fair hand that he loved her as man never yet had loved, and to go to work in the fashion usually most approved by young ladies. In a hurried manner, I say; for just at this moment he was being made solicitor-general, and had almost too many irons in the fire to permit of a prolonged dallying¹. But Caroline would have none of it, either hurried or not hurried. Whatever might be the case with Sir Henry, she had gone through that phase of life, and now declared to herself that she did not want any more of it.

Sir Henry did not find the task of gaining his bride very difficult. He had succeeded in establishing a sort of intimacy² with old Mr. Bertram, and it appeared that permission to run down to Hadley and run back again had already been accorded to him before Miss Baker³ and Caroline arrived there. He never slept, though he sometimes dined in the house; but he had always something to talk about when an excuse for going to Hadley was required. Mr. Bertram had asked him something about some investment, and he had found out this something; or he wanted to ask Mr. Bertram's advice on some question as to his political career. At this period he was, or professed⁴ to be, very much guided in his public life by Mr. Bertram's opinion.

And thus he fell in with Caroline. On the first occasion of his doing so, he contrived⁵ to whisper to her his deep sympathy with her sorrow; on his second visit, he spoke⁶ more of himself and less of Bertram; on his third, he alluded⁷ only to her own virtues⁸; on his fourth, he asked her to be Lady Harcourt. She told him that she would be Lady Harcourt; and, as far as she was concerned, there was an end of it for the present.

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