Little of what is really going on in society can be traced on its gay,
sparkling surface, where, amidst laughter, music, jesting, and smiles,
a deep current may be flowing on of anger, envy, mortification, and
disappointment. Agnes had lately allowed herself to suspect that her
preference for Captain De Crespigny was by no means mutual; and though
it still lingered in her mind, out-living all that coldness and caprice
which had superseded the persevering ardor with which he once
endeavored to engross her attention, the indignation of her feelings
drove her now to seek relief in any counter-irritation, and especially
in cultivating, beside Lord Doncaster, the society where he was most
depreciated, and where she heard many a story of him from the Abbe,
which filled her with angry misgivings.
Captain De Crespigny now perceived, with almost bewildered
astonishment, that the beautiful Agnes remained stationary the whole
evening with Lord Doncaster, wishing, he conjectured, to propitiate the
uncle as a preliminary to securing the nephew, and that she actually
made him a secondary object in society, while it was evident the
Marquis observed and enjoyed this very visible alteration. It became
particularly conspicuous at last, when Captain De Crespigny having
spoken, one evening, a few words to Agnes, strolled away in momentary
pique at the careless inattention of her reply, after which the vacant
chair, beside her and Lord Doncaster, was immediately occupied by the
Abbe, who talked down both his companions, while a long discussion
ensued, of evidently deepening interest, during which the eyes of all
three were frequently directed towards Captain De Crespigny. Those of
Agnes now assumed an almost unnatural brightness, and her cheek became
dyed with a hectic flush of excitement. Then, for the first time, he
perceived the gold crucifix which she held carelessly in her hand,
while the Abbe spoke with an air of artful and subdued earnestness, and
Lord Doncaster, looking like winter beside spring, watched, with
evident admiration, the changes of color and expression which flitted
like an aurora borealis on her beautiful features. It occurred to
Captain De Crespigny, that his uncle, believing, perhaps, in some
degree, the report of his marriage to Agnes, and being an enthusiastic
admirer of beauty, might wish the Abbe first to convert the young lady
to his own faith, before bestowing him upon her, and as the idea
flitted through his mind, he smiled inwardly to think how they would
all be disappointed. Still the ceaseless conversation continued, and
Captain De Crespigny, apprehending it might never come to any
particular end, resolved, for his own amusement, _coute qui coute_, to
break up the _coterie_.
"Miss Dunbar," said he, advancing, and in a matter-of-course way
offering his arm, "allow me the pleasure of this quadrille with you!"
Agnes seemed almost to awaken from a dream at these words, but, after a
moment's evident perplexity, during which she assumed an air of
dignified indecision, Lord Doncaster having turned away to converse
with Mrs. O'Donoghoe, she slowly rose, and silently took her place in
the dance.
Captain De Crespigny had hitherto been to Agnes like the sun to the
dial, causing the lights and shadows of joy or anxiety to flit over her
countenance according to his own pleasure, but now he became piqued and
astonished to perceive that he could not even command her most
transient attention, and with a satirical glance at her absent
countenance, he emphatically exclaimed,
"A delightful party this!"
"Yes, delightful!" echoed Agnes, mechanically.
"And delightful music too!" added he, observing with increased surprise
the total absence of her thoughts.
"Delightful, indeed!" repeated Agnes, in an almost dreaming tone.
"And what a delightful partner I have secured!" added Captain De
Crespigny, with some asperity of tone, while gazing more and more
curiously into her countenance. "I am so well pleased, that really it
was fortunate I did not shoot or drown myself yesterday! We are
excelling ourselves to-night, Miss Dunbar! I never saw you so
agreeable, so particularly facetious! Your spirits are perfectly
turbulent!"
"That is the more surprising, as I have done nothing this evening but
yawn and be yawned at," replied Agnes, resuming her gay, bantering
tone. "I have been plastered to the wall like Warren's Japan blacking,
looking as grave as an old gate-post, while you were generally so far
off, that I borrowed a good telescope at last, to try whether it might
be possible to see you!"
"I could not approach within a mile, you were so barricaded with Abbes
and Marquises, but you of course occupied all my thoughts. Shall I ever
forget my vexation on beholding my fossil specimen of an uncle
depositing his bones in the very seat I intended for myself. He is
really becoming a formidable rival!"
"Very true!" replied Agnes, forcing a laugh. "Lord Doncaster is so
agreeable, that I am all but captivated, and if this were leap year I
might, perhaps, use the lady's privilege and propose!"
"Take care, or I shall tell him so!"
"Pray do! It will save time, and he has but little to spare!"
"I am very certain, if the old boy were ninety years younger, he would
make you an offer! But certainly marriage is a juvenile indiscretion,
only for young people like us!"
"Lord Doncaster says, he is any age I like, and pledges himself always
to continue so!" replied Agnes, laughing, though she became agitated to
the very tips of her fingers, while, trying not to seem embarrassed,
she hastily drew her gloves on and off, adjusted her necklace, and
betrayed, by other nervous manoeuvres, that her mind was not quite at
ease under the observant eye of Captain De Crespigny, who looked at her
with satirical surprise, and at last exclaimed, in accents of wonder,
"May my bridle be too long, and my stirrup too short, Miss Dunbar, if I
ever dreamed of jesting with you in earnest, about the old veteran
amateur in flirtations, my uncle! That is rather beyond a joke,--and as
for the Abbe, you ought to put him down in your private list of
detestables, being a bad and dangerous man for young ladies to form an
intimacy with. Let me be your father confessor to-night, Miss Dunbar,
and tell me when, under his auspices, you mean to take the veil!"
Seeing Agnes become more and more embarrassed, Captain De Crespigny's
politeness now induced him to change the subject, though still unable
to conjecture any probable cause for her confusion; therefore assuming
his usual tone of careless conceit, he added, "Mrs. O'Donoghoe tells me
there are two singularly handsome officers in the room to-night; but I
cannot see the second. We can be at no loss for No. 1. There is a
strange-looking mortal opposite in black! He skips about in the
quadrille like an industrious flea! Does it not seem like a frightful
dream, that we are expected to find steps for such music as this? What
would Monsieur D'Egville say, if he saw me, his favorite pupil,
blundering through the figure to such discord?"
"He would still be proud of his scholar! I mistook you for Duvernay
last night when you danced with Mrs. O'Donoghoe at the Crown ball. Her
dancing-master must have been St. Vitus! She was as light as----"
"As a cork flying from a bottle of champagne! You seem perplexed for
once to find a simile!"
"And you are not particularly happy in yours! I have been puzzling my
head for the last two seconds who that gold man is opposite in uniform.
He looks like a clever caricature of an officer on leave!"
"That is Charleville of ours! Mrs. O'Donoghoe considers him the first
of men! almost superhuman! because, as she said to me yesterday, 'he is
quite the thing! drives a tandem--rides races in a bonnet and
habit--can back his horse down the steepest hill in Low
Harrowgate--writes occasionally in the Sporting Magazine--and smokes
more cigars in a day than the whole regiment in a week!'"
"There is an officer of that description in every regiment, who is
generally called 'Jack' or 'Tom.' I detest these hunting, racing,
smoking, and betting men; but you may introduce him to me when the
quadrille is over."
"That is a ceremony I never perform, and never undergo! It is too
solemn an affair for me to engage in! I never mean, as long as I live,
to be introduced to any one--never!"
"Then if your present list of friends is to last for life, I hope it
musters pretty strong?"
"Pardon me! We are not so particular at an ordinary as in an opera-box!
There are ways and means of becoming acquainted without my making
people conceited, by asking to be introduced! I tread on a lady's gown
in passing, look shocked, beg her pardon, receive the very sweetest of
smiles, enter into conversation, and am intimate in a moment!"
"Very easy and convenient! I never could imagine till now why officers
had all become so awkward at parties lately, in tearing my dress with
their spurs!"
"Believe me, nobody is ever introduced to anybody now, and ladies have
become equally ingenious with myself in picking up acquaintances. At
Almacks last season, Lady Sarah Wyvell, having the good fortune to be
next me in a quadrille, though we were not acquainted, asked, with a
modest diffident air, if I could possibly tell her the hour. I politely
took the trouble of answering her, and mentioned, that the key of my
watch had been for some time mislaid, and therefore it was not wound
up; but next evening, when we met at the Russian Ambassador's fete,
would you believe it, she walked up to me, and, with a fascinating
smile, begged my acceptance of a watch-key, beautifully set in
turquoises!"
"Which fitted exactly, of course!" added Agnes, laughing. "I like a
round unvarnished tale, and admire a ready invention, especially when
the story is perfectly credible, and betrays no personal conceit
whatever. The world certainly grows more ridiculous every day!"
"You never said a truer thing! It is a good plan in conversation always
to say what nobody can contradict! Never certainly was there a more
ludicrous medley of people shuffled together, than here at this moment!
Nothing but old Doncaster's whim could have brought me to such a
snobbery and tag-raggery! Harrowgate is like death itself for levelling
all distinctions! You may glance down the dinner-table, containing a
hundred and thirty odd-looking guests, and each individual has the same
quiet, little, unpretending bottle of sherry placed at his elbow, and
labelled with his name. Even the great millionaire, Mr. Crawford, who
might, if he chose, drink liquid gold, fares no better, though he has
brought home the sort of nabob fortune people used to make long ago.
The art is lost now!"
"You might find it, I dare say, in some of the Useful Knowledge books."
"Yes! but I manage still better, by spending a fortune without
possessing one, which does quite as well, and gives me less trouble.
The hat is his who wears it, and the world is his who enjoys it."
"What a pity that very good people like the Crawfords are so often
atrociously disagreeable," observed Agnes, listlessly. "We must allow,
that in this world rogues are the majority; and as their good opinion
is the most easily gained, and the most easily kept, I wonder less
every day that some men are satisfied to secure that, and live upon
it."
"I wish I had either!" said Sir Patrick, laughing.
"The whole tribe of Crawfords are, in my opinion, seriously unpleasant,
with their airs of condescending stiffness and ineffable superiority,"
said Agnes, "never vouchsafing to appear, except at dinner, and
huddling out of sight the instant we rise. Those who desire to be
exclusive should take private lodgings, and not spoil a place like this
by any purseproud finery! They almost live with Marion and the
Granvilles; but I abhor that whole set!"
"So I do!" exclaimed Sir Patrick. "I hate their very parrot! He sits in
a golden cage at the window, looking over his nose at one in the most
exclusive manner imaginable. Old Crawford was a shop-boy in some
green-grocer's once, I believe; therefore, it really amused me
yesterday to hear him in the loud authoritative tone of a connoisseur,
finding fault with the sherry. I never pronounce upon any wine till I
have drunk a few dozen of it; but it is credibly reported, that the
Crawfords at home indulge in nothing but Cape Madeira and water. We,
who have been brought up upon claret, conform to custom with a better
grace. I should never think of putting the cellars here out of fashion,
by saying what I really think of them; but _entre nous_, the whole
contents are perfect poison. Of the two, I would rather drink the
Harrowgate waters, because they have at least the one merit of being
wholesome."
"Lord Doncaster seems to find the sherry drinkable," said Agnes dryly;
"and, as you say, 'he has cracked a bottle or two in his time.'"
"Very true! a really aristocratic man is so accustomed to everything of
the best, that he tolerates or enjoys the inconveniences of an inn or a
steamboat as an amusing variety," said Mrs. O'Donoghoe. "Besides which,
Miss Dunbar, between you and me and the post, Lord Doncaster is old,
and somewhat _passee_. You and he made quite a _tableau_ together this
evening; but take my word for it, Lord Doncaster is no chicken!"
"I need not take anybody's word for that! I have my eyes in my head
like others!" replied Agnes, rather sharply, and glancing towards a
distant corner of the room where Lord Doncaster was seated, with his
eye at the moment fixed on herself. "We may all see that he is not the
youngest man in the world; but he is certainly one of the most
agreeable!"
"Well! old or young," continued Mrs. O'Donoghoe, resuming her habitual
smile, "Lord Doncaster is my very particular friend, and if I meet him
ten times in a day, he shakes me by the hand as cordially the last time
as the first."
"Tiresome old bore!" replied Sir Patrick; "I would put my hand in my
pocket the second time, and tell him, once a-day must do!"
"Instead of putting it into an empty pocket, Sir Patrick, offer it to
one of the two Miss Crawfords," said Mrs. O'Donoghoe, rolling her eyes
affectedly round, like the wire-drawn eyes of a wax doll. "The old
nabob is so rich, that it took five India ships to carry home his
fortune, and he has settled his whole countless rupees on the young
ladies. What do you say, gentlemen?--one each? That tall may-pole, the
eldest, who looks as if she could eat her own shoulders off, will be a
great catch."
"She has proposed to me twenty times," replied Captain De Crespigny,
"but I am not to be had! It would be necessary for me to hang all her
relations, they are so vulgar! The second looks as fat and round as
from yesterday till next year; but if she were less like a turbot
standing on end, more like the person I admire most in the world, and
several years younger, possibly I might propose."
"If you thought she would have you," replied Mrs. O'Donoghoe, laughing,
"you would propose without minding the years. If a girl had eighteen
pence, you would propose instantly, for fear she might spend a shilling
of it!"
"I am told Miss Crawford was born in diamond ear-rings," said Agnes.
"She looks as if it had rained precious stones on her ever since,--as
if she had been pelted at the Carnival with diamonds instead of
sugar-plums! The price of blonde and feathers is raised in every town
where the Miss Crawfords arrive!----"
"The Miss Crawfords must not be ridiculed," interrupted Captain De
Crespigny, looking very magnanimous, "at least by any one except
myself! They are my preserve! They both dress in the last extreme of
jewellery to please me; and I am pleased. If I have a weakness in the
world, it is for dress; and, in my opinion, ladies ought all to shine
like glow-worms every night. Look at this indefinite article of a man
approaching! Tall, and covered with orders, he looks like a house
insured! Who can he be?"
"Never distress yourself about who people are," said Agnes. "Somebody's
son, I believe,--and somebody's nephew or cousin, with estates in all
the disturbed districts of Ireland."
"Very accurate and satisfactory! Watering-place imaginations are apt to
be a little inventive; like Cuvier, who described the whole history and
formation of any animal from seeing merely a single tooth! With that
bottle-green coat and all that light hair on the roof his head, he
looks like a bottle of porter newly drawn, and foaming at the top. It
makes me thirsty to see him."
"I excel particularly in biography," added Agnes, laughing. "That
tigerish-looking man you are inquiring about, with all the little stars
and bits of ribbon, had a whole regiment of horses killed under him at
Waterloo! He saw sixteen colonels of cavalry lose their heads that day
in battle, and he received fifteen mortal wounds himself, before he
left the field!"
"Agnes, your stories would be as difficult to bolt as the American
oyster, which it took three men to swallow whole! You remind me of the
man who contrived to place a fly's eye so that he could see through it,
and he found that it multiplied everything, till a single officer
appeared like a whole army. I never saw a man ride as that stranger did
this morning! His horse is a mere spider, and he jumped up and down in
the saddle like a cup and ball?" said Sir Patrick, laughing; "but the
climax of all his atrocities was, five minutes ago, when Marion
re-entered the room, I heard him request that the master of the
ceremonies would introduce him to one of my sisters! I am at a loss to
guess which, but here he comes, drawing on a splendid pair of gloves!"
"Pray do not let me be the victim!" said Agnes, shrinking back with a
contemptuous toss of the head. "I have no turn for teaching a bear to
dance! and I will not be made ridiculous by having such a partner! The
ugliest man I ever saw for nothing! Is he a human being?"
"For my part, I do not feel that being ridiculous or otherwise depends
on any one but myself," said Marion good-humoredly; "and if it will
make a man, all ribbons and orders of merit, happy, to perform a
quadrille, I have not the least objection to be his partner, especially
when he wears such very clean gloves!"
"Miss Dunbar!" said the master of the ceremonies, approaching Marion in
his most pompous manner, "allow me to introduce the Duke of Kinross!"
Marion accepted his Grace's offered arm, looking by no means so much
petrified at the unexpected rank of her partner as Agnes did, who
started, and colored with evident vexation, at having even in thought
rejected the greatest man in Harrowgate, the hero of all her castles in
the air, and one who was considered as eminent for ability as for rank.
"Well, Agnes!" exclaimed Sir Patrick, in a bantering tone, "for the
first time in a long life you have made a blunder. You who never, even
at chess, would play a pawn, if you could move a knight or a bishop, to
have actually rejected a ducal coronet. I thought that in general you
could draw out people's whole histories and characters like an
opera-glass, and see through them in a minute. You generally know
everybody's peculiarities and everybody's value, who everybody is, and
what everybody does, with notes and annotations of your own, all
original and authentic,--who have elder brothers to impoverish them,
and rich uncles to give them hopes,--in short, their whole biography
better than they know it themselves!"
"To be sure! I am an inestimable cicerone, 'honest, civil, obliging,
and thoroughly to be depended on!' Where other people have only two
eyes, I have three, and I make it my duty to ascertain who brings a
footman or an abigail, what carriages people travel in, what stay they
intend to make here, whether they hire a sitting-room, or lounge, like
Mrs. O'Donoghoe, in the public saloon! I do believe the well-informed
visitors at Harrowgate know exactly how much silver we carry in our
purses every day, and what our washing-bills amount to!"
"Not much in some cases!" said Captain De Crespigny, fixing his
satirical, mischievous glance on a shabby-genteel stranger who seemed
to be lurking near and watching the lively party with an evil eye.
"Look at this dark figure leaning against the door in a sort of Italian
bandit attitude, trying to look romantic with his arms stuck on like
crooked pins, his neckcloth perfectly strangling him, and his scarlet
waistcoat like a robin-red-breast!"
"Is there a man in a waistcoat!! where?" asked Agnes eagerly. "Another
Duke, I suppose. He seems like the picture of a robber in some sixpenny
story book. But how he stares at you, Captain De Crespigny! I declare
that look would pin me to the wall!"
"It is rather odd! Surely I have seen that man somewhere before! He
must have dressed my hair at Brighton, or measured me for a coat at
Dodd's. He is probably now the sort of £200 a-year man who wears a gold
chain and vagabondizes about perpetually from one watering place to
another! He seems by his look inclined to pick a quarrel with me; and,
if he does so, I feel pretty certain he ought already to be sent among
the velvets below stairs, which he certainly shall be without much
ceremony. What can the fellow mean by looking such daggers at me in
particular?"
"One addition is expected to the Crawford party to-night, which will
puzzle you all!" said Mrs. O'Donoghoe. "That enchanting suite of rooms
next the garden has been bespoken during the last three weeks, by some
person whose name is quite unguessable! The landlady says that Mr.
Crawford has made her solemnly promise never to divulge it! Now! there
is something worth knowing!--a dark unfathomable mystery in a place
like this, is perfectly inestimable!"
"I undertake to solve it in twenty-four hours!" exclaimed Sir Patrick,
with animation. "When there is a real undeniable secret to be ferreted
out, I am wider awake than most people! I can do everything but what is
impossible! If I fail, then, as the lawyer once pathetically exclaimed,
'may my head forget the wig that covers it!' What will you bet that I
succeed? Here is my betting-book to register our agreement; I never
stir without it!"
"I have no turn for betting my head off my shoulders; but you shall
have the Pigot diamond for your trouble!" replied Mrs. O'Donoghoe. "I
have been busy about it for three weeks in vain, going about
investigating, with my glass at my eye, like Paul Pry, but the maids
pretend to know nothing, and the landlady looks bursting with
mysterious importance whenever she speaks of her coming guests!"
"Then I am twice a man when there is anything to be found out!"
continued Sir Patrick. "If I had lived in the days of the Iron mask,
that affair would have been probed to the bottom, and laid open. I have
quite a genius for unravelling mysteries!"
"If so, I allow you three days for scrutinizing the expected _incognito_,
after which, do you promise and engage to furnish me with their numbers,
names, professions, ages, fortunes----"
"And expectations! certainly! Also to disclose why they came here, and
when they go away. Mrs. O'Donoghoe, I delight in difficulties, and
glory in conquering them! I abhor everything easy! Even if you were
easily pleased, I should have less pleasure in fascinating you."
At this moment, a plain travelling carriage suddenly swept round the
road leading towards the Granby, while in the clear moonlight it could
only be discerned that two footmen sat behind, and two lady's maids
were mounted on the dickey; but before the rush of gentlemen towards
the lobby, which usually takes place on such occasions, could be
successfully achieved, the chariot stopped at a garden-gate beyond the
usual entrance, while in the dusky obscurity the most penetrating eye
could not discover who or what alighted. A torrent of waiters streamed
along the passages, a noisy outcry was heard summoning the landlady,
every bell in the house seemed ringing simultaneously, and Captain De
Crespigny was surprised to observe the dark, stern-looking stranger
standing near the door, as if he belonged to the party, and yet did not
wish to be seen.
A procession of four wax candles, and a tea tray proceeding afterwards
towards the newly occupied sitting-room, was all that the most
enterprising observers could discover; and as there were but three
cups, and Mr. Crawford was known to have joined the party, it became
very plausibly conjectured by Sir Patrick that there were but two new
arrivals.
The supper-bell had been rung that evening about ten minutes, and a
numerous bevy of gentlemen collected round it, varied by a scanty
sprinkling of ladies. The table was covered with wine glasses and
crystal decanters enough to fill a glass shop, with not a drop of
anything visible to drink, except cold spring water; each gentleman had
half a pigeon on his plate, and each lady a glass of jelly before her.
The uproar of waiters, plates, and tongues, and glasses had subsided,
and the conversation was at so low an ebb, that there seemed every
probability of the whole party being found asleep in their chairs next
morning, when suddenly their attention was roused by the door being
hurriedly opened by the _soi-disant_ gentleman entering, who had
already excited the notice of Captain De Crespigny.
Besides the eager curiosity felt in every small community, to see every
one recently added to their number, this was a gentleman whom few of
the company had seen before, and such a gentleman as is seldom seen
anywhere. His dark hair hung in wild profusion over his head. There was
an extraordinary wildness, almost amounting to ferocity, in his eyes,
which had the restless glare of a wild beast's, as he quickly glanced
round the table, while his pale haggard features, and the strong
compression of his upper lip, gave him an air of irritable melancholy,
along with a look of flustered, anxious suspicion quite unaccountable.
He seemed annoyed at having attracted any observation, while, if
Banquo's ghost had appeared, the apparition could scarcely have
awakened more attention, as the party had little to do, and nothing
else to think of.
"One would fancy a kangaroo had come in to supper!" muttered he,
angrily, glancing round with a look of scorching hatred at Captain De
Crespigny, and drawing his chair near Mrs. O'Donoghoe, who was almost
the only lady still remaining. He then cut himself a supply of cold
veal, that might have dined a couple of grouse-shooters, with ham in
proportion, not at all carved on the Vauxhall pattern, and glancing at
all the observant eyes around the table, he added, endeavoring to look
in a more amiable mood, while a most unpleasing attempt at a smile for
a moment disturbed his features; "I see, gentlemen, you are somewhat
amazed at my powers of mastication! I am not Dando; but let me tell you
I could finish all we see, and pick the bones of that turkey besides.
What man in his senses would profess to be hungry, and sit down to half
a pigeon! You seem to be quite a Temperance Society here! Fifteen jugs
of water in regimental order round the table! The waiters must have
bottled off the Thames!"
A suppressed whisper ran round the table, circulating many wondering
conjectures who the stranger could possibly be, for there appeared a
vehemence in his tone, and an irritability in his eye most repulsive
and peculiar.
"That man looks as if he had stepped forth ready made, from one of Mrs.
Radcliffe's romances," exclaimed Mrs. O'Donoghoe, in an apprehensive
tone, as she strolled away from the table. "Who can he be?"
"One of the swell mob! I remember his picking my pocket in Bond Street,
last spring," replied Captain De Crespigny, confidentially. "Did you
not observe his bunch of skeleton keys."
"You are quite mistaken," interposed Sir Patrick. "He is one of the
garden-room party. I saw him waiting for them in the passage; people of
prodigious fortune I assure you! Their names are--no matter what! but
they have estates in--I don't know how many counties!"
"He has rather an aristocratic look!" added Mrs. O'Donoghoe. "The sort
of arbitrary air, as if he were accustomed to command a regiment!"
"More like an unengaged actor from one of the minor theatres, or a
travelling dancing master. They are very well got up sometimes, and he
is exactly according to the last 'gentleman's fashions for the month,'"
said Captain De Crespigny. "But certainly in some shape or other, a
strolling gentleman-beggar; probably, like the dustman's dog, he
answers to any name."
"Perhaps," added Sir Patrick, laughing, "one of those innumerable
lecturers on astronomy, who are constantly tormenting me with
prospectuses. If any man whatever is in distress, he puts on a decent
coat, and announces a popular course of lectures, in which he makes the
comets ten times hotter than ever, and the stars as many millions of
miles distant as he pleases, shows plenty of diagrams, talks big about
Sir Isaac Newton, gives a dissertation on the political economy of the
moon; tells a few anecdotes, hazards a few conjectures, doubts what
everybody believes, or believes what everybody doubts, and his bread is
baked. I mean to try the plan myself some day!"
"Depend upon it, he is a peer of the realm," added Mrs. O'Donoghoe,
more imperatively than before. "I heard that Lord Wakefield was
expected to-day. His sister, Lady Jane, whom I saw once at a
Spitalfields ball, was thin, with dark hair, exactly in that style."
"I have no doubt he is an Earl one day, and a Duke the next, as it
happens to suit his fancy; and if you look well at him, Mrs.
O'Donoghoe, he has a coronet tattooed on his forehead," whispered
Captain De Crespigny. "That is the very last new fashion for peers."
"Coronets are falling into great disuse now; so I am glad they are to
be displayed any where," replied Agnes. "Lady Towercliffe's eldest son,
Lord St. Abbe, used to have one embroidered on his pinafore; but the
coronet on Lord Doncaster's chariot now is almost invisible, and not
larger than you would use for the seal of a note."
"I know whose taste ought to be paramount in ordering the next carriage
bearing the Doncaster arms," whispered Captain De Crespigny, throwing a
world of arch expression into his countenance. "How exceedingly well
our shield would look quartered with the lion rampant, and the eight
roses of the Dunbars!"
Agnes did not, as she would have done formerly, on hearing so broad an
insinuation, look down and blush, or attempt to blush; but she fixed a
long and searching look on Captain De Crespigny, during which her large
lustrous eyes betrayed an inward struggle between the interest with
which she would once have gathered up every expression of her voice,
and the lurking angry suspicion she now felt of his sincerity; but her
confidence was in some degree restored, when, keeping up a lively
dialogue till the last moment, he assumed his most becoming looks, and
escorted her to the door.
"Pray, Miss Dunbar," said he gravely, "will you give me a very serious
answer to a very serious question?"
"Perhaps I may," replied Agnes, looking rather startled.
"Then, whether do you think ladies or gentlemen are the greatest
humbugs?"
"Gentlemen, certainly; for they often pretend to feel what they do not,
but ladies conceal what they do."