What a charming character is a kind old man.--STEPHEN MONTAGUE.
“Cheer up, my dear boy,” said Talbot, kindly, “we must never despair.
What though Lady Westborough has forbidden you the boudoir, a boudoir is
a very different thing from a daughter, and you have no right to suppose
that the veto extends to both. But now that we are on this subject, do
let me reason with you seriously. Have you not already tasted all the
pleasures, and been sufficiently annoyed by some of the pains, of acting
the ‘Incognito’? Be ruled by me: resume your proper name; it is at least
one which the proudest might acknowledge; and its discovery will remove
the greatest obstacle to the success which you so ardently desire.”
Clarence, who was labouring under strong excitement, paused for some
moments, as if to collect himself, before he replied: “I have been
thrust from my father’s home; I have been made the victim of another’s
crime; I have been denied the rights and name of son; perhaps (and I
say this bitterly) justly denied them, despite of my own innocence. What
would you have me do? Resume a name never conceded to me,--perhaps not
righteously mine,--thrust myself upon the unwilling and shrinking hands
which disowned and rejected me; blazon my virtues by pretensions which
I myself have promised to forego, and foist myself on the notice of
strangers by the very claims which my nearest relations dispute? Never!
never! never! With the simple name I have assumed; the friend I myself
have won,--you, my generous benefactor, my real father, who never
forsook nor insulted me for my misfortunes,--with these I have gained
some steps in the ladder; with these, and those gifts of nature, a stout
heart and a willing hand, of which none can rob me, I will either ascend
the rest, even to the summit, or fall to the dust, unknown, but not
contemned; unlamented, but not despised.”
“Well, well,” said Talbot, brushing away a tear which he could not
deny to the feeling, even while he disputed the judgment, of the young
adventurer,--“well, this is all very fine and very foolish; but you
shall never want friend or father while I live, or when I have ceased to
live; but come,--sit down, share my dinner, which is not very good, and
my dessert, which is: help me to entertain two or three guests who are
coming to me in the evening, to talk on literature, sup, and sleep; and
to-morrow you shall return home, and see Lady Flora in the drawing-room
if you cannot in the boudoir.”
And Clarence was easily persuaded to accept the invitation. Talbot
was not one of those men who are forced to exert themselves to be
entertaining. He had the pleasant and easy way of imparting his great
general and curious information, that a man, partly humourist, partly
philosopher, who values himself on being a man of letters, and is in
spite of himself a man of the world, always ought to possess. Clarence
was soon beguiled from the remembrance of his mortifications, and,
by little and little, entirely yielded to the airy and happy flow of
Talbot’s conversation.
In the evening, three or four men of literary eminence (as many as
Talbot’s small Tusculum would accommodate with beds) arrived, and in a
conversation, free alike from the jargon of pedants and the insipidities
of fashion, the night fled away swiftly and happily, even to the lover.