--You remember my earl's patent; it
is dated some years back, for services then rendered; and certainly
my merit has not been diminished, to say the least, by my subsequent
behaviour. Now, sir, I value this bauble of a coronet as little as you
can, or any philosopher on earth; for I hold that the chief of such
a clan as the Sliochd nan Ivor is superior in rank to any earl in
Scotland. But I had a particular reason for assuming this cursed title
at this time. You must know, that I learned accidentally that the Prince
has been pressing that old foolish Baron of Bradwardine to disinherit
his male heir, or nineteenth or twentieth cousin, who has taken a
command in the Elector of Hanover's militia, and to settle his estate
upon your pretty little friend Rose; and this, as being the command
of his king and overlord, who may alter the destination of a fief at
pleasure, the old gentleman seems well reconciled to.'
'And what becomes of the homage?'
'Curse the homage!--I believe Rose is to pull off the queen's slipper
on her coronation-day, or some such trash. Well sir, as Rose Bradwardine
would always have made a suitable match for me, but for this idiotical
predilection of her father for the heir-male, it occurred to me there
now remained no obstacle, unless that the Baron might expect his
daughter's husband to take the name of Bradwardine (which you know would
be impossible in my case), and that this might be evaded by my assuming
the title to which I had so good a right, and which, of course, would
supersede that difficulty.
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