interested in you, and you may consult him with the more safety and assurance; because" (and the lawyer smiled) "he is perhaps the only man in the world whom my Lucy could not make in love with her. His gallantry may appear adulation, but it is never akin to love. Promise me, that you will not hesitate in this?"
Lucy gave the promise readily, and Brandon continued in a careless tone: "I hear that you danced last night with a young gentleman whom no one knew, and whose companions bore a very strange appearance. In a place like Bath, society is too mixed, not to render the greatest caution in forming acquaintances absolutely necessary. You must pardon me, my dearest niece, if I remark that a young lady owes it not only to herself, but to her relations, to observe the most rigid circumspection of conduct. This is a wicked world, and the peach-like bloom of character is easily rubbed away. In these points, Mauleverer can be of great use to you. His knowledge of character—his penetration into men—and his
