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Aunt Effie. If I find so worthy a fellow, you may be sure it will not deter me that he is not from the ton. Sleep now, my love. You need your rest and we can talk more tomorrow.”
    “I only spoke of him so that you would understand. Tomorrow I will not wish to share my memories.” She cast a pleading look on her niece.
    Marianne nodded. “We won’t speak of him again.”
    * * * *
    Of the five calls the earl and his secretary made in the evening and the following morning, none could be considered a success, so far as Lord Latteridge was concerned. At Lord Haxby’s he was introduced to two comely maidens who seemed so appallingly young that he afterwards queried his secretary as to whether they were yet out of the schoolroom.
    “I wonder if they’ve ever been in one,” was the amused reply. “Miss Agatha seemed to believe that the earth was flat, and Miss Amelia thought Walpole was still the king’s first secretary. But I believe there is a school of thought, in addressing marriage matters, wherein the gentleman should take to wife a woman whom he can mold to his own design. The tabula rasa principle, we might call it.”
    “I do not subscribe to such a theory,” the earl grumbled.
    Miss Condicote, on their next visit, presented a different problem altogether. If not precisely a bluestocking, and only from large-mindedness would one refrain from the epithet, she was at the very least a scholarly woman, dogmatic beyond her years and beyond reason, holding views on every possible subject, and often on the most scant knowledge. Her learning ran to the classics, and if a contemporary situation could conceivably be compared, or even if it could not, she managed to do so. Latteridge politely excused himself after she had drawn a parallel between Byng’s disaster at Minorca and Ajax’s at Troy.
    My Lord Winscombe lived beyond Castleford, and though his medieval manor was somewhat out of the way, the earl remembered hearing the daughter’s name mentioned by his sister. He had no recollection of the context until he had sat with the family for half an hour. Then very clearly he recalled Louisa’s remarks: “Sarah is a flirt. I have seen her cast sheep’s eyes at the parson and the blacksmith, and lift her skirts above the ankles when her brother brought home his friends. Mama would have an hysterical fit if I fluttered my fan the way she does.”
    The fan Sarah used on this occasion had ivory sticks and gossamer-like lace insets. Latteridge had seen fans worked with consummate skill by ladies of every European country, but he had never seen the like of Sarah’s artistry, not even by the most accomplished courtesans of the day. Fascinated, he watched as she drew the partially extended fan across the milky white expanse of her bosom, largely revealed in her low-cut gown. The sensuousness of the gesture was only heightened by the luminous blue eyes which rested adoringly on her beholder. With a longing sigh she proceeded to manipulate the accessory in such a way that each stroke brushed lightly against the taut fabric across her bosom. Some scientific observation concerning the concurrent heating and cooling of an object distracted Latteridge’s mind so that he entirely missed Lady Winscombe’s sage counsel on the pruning of fruit trees.
    When he was once more seated in the phaeton, the ribbons in his hands, he murmured, “Dear God!” to which the staunch William replied, “Just so, my lord.”
     

Chapter Six
     
    At this point, the earl would as lief have discontinued his endeavors for the day had he not, in his usual courteous manner, sent word ahead that he would call on Mr. Tremaine and Sir Joseph Horton. Despite years spent out of England, the earl had some acquaintance with most of the county families, and knew which possessed daughters of marriageable age. He found that his knowledge was rather out-of-date, however, in the case of the Tremaines, since all four of their daughters were apparently now married