Kitabı oku: «A History of Pendennis. Volume 1. His fortunes and misfortunes, his friends and his greatest enemy», sayfa 21
CHAPTER XXIII.
NEW FACES
The inmates of Fairoaks were drowsily pursuing this humdrum existence while the great house upon the hill, on the other side of the River Brawl, was shaking off the slumber in which it had lain during the lives of two generations of masters, and giving extraordinary signs of renewed liveliness.
Just about the time of Pen's little mishap, and when he was so absorbed in the grief occasioned by that calamity as to take no notice of events which befell persons less interesting to himself than Arthur Pendennis, an announcement appeared in the provincial journals which caused no small sensation in the county at least, and in all the towns, villages, halls and mansions, and parsonages for many miles round Clavering Park. At Clavering Market, at Cackleby Fair; at Chatteries Sessions; on Gooseberry Green, as the squire's carriage met the vicar's one-horse contrivance, and the inmates of both vehicles stopped on the road to talk; at Tinkleton Church gate, as the bell was tolling in the sunshine, and the white smocks and scarlet cloaks came trooping over the green common, to Sunday worship; in a hundred societies round about – the word was, that Clavering Park was to be inhabited again.
Some five years before, the county papers had advertised the marriage at Florence, at the British Legation, of Francis Clavering, Esq., only son of Sir Francis Clavering, Bart., of Clavering Park, with Jemima Augusta, daughter of Samuel Snell, of Calcutta, Esq., and widow of the late J. Amory, Esq. At that time the legend in the county was that Clavering, who had been ruined for many a year, had married a widow from India with some money. Some of the county folks caught a sight of the newly-married pair. The Kickleburys, traveling in Italy had seen them. Clavering occupied the Poggi Palace at Florence, gave parties, and lived comfortably – but could never come to England. Another year – young Peregrine, of Cackleby, making a long vacation tour, had fallen in with the Claverings occupying Schloss Schinkenstein, on the Mummel See. At Rome, at Lucca, at Nice, at the baths and gambling places of the Rhine and Belgium, this worthy couple might occasionally be heard of by the curious, and rumors of them came, as it were by gusts, to Clavering's ancestral place.
Their last place of abode was Paris, where they appear to have lived in great fashion and splendor after the news of the death of Samuel Snell, Esq., of Calcutta, reached his orphan daughter in Europe.
Of Sir Francis Clavering's antecedents little can be said that would be advantageous to that respected baronet. The son of an outlaw, living in a dismal old chateau near Bruges, this gentleman had made a feeble attempt to start in life with a commission in a dragoon regiment, and had broken down almost at the outset. Transactions at the gambling-table had speedily effected his ruin; after a couple of years in the army he had been forced to sell out, had passed some time in Her Majesty's prison of the Fleet, and had then shipped over to Ostend to join the gouty exile, his father. And in Belgium, France, and Germany, for some years, this decayed and abortive prodigal might be seen lurking about billiard-rooms and watering-places, punting at gambling-houses, dancing at boarding-house balls, and riding steeple-chases on other folks' horses.
It was at a boarding-house at Lausanne, that Francis Clavering made what he called the lucky coup of marrying the widow Amory, very lately returned from Calcutta. His father died soon after, by consequence of whose demise his wife became Lady Clavering. The title so delighted Mr. Snell of Calcutta, that he doubled his daughter's allowance; and dying himself soon after, left a fortune to her and her children, the amount of which was, if not magnified by rumor, something very splendid indeed.
Before this time there had been, not rumors unfavorable to Lady Clavering's reputation, but unpleasant impressions regarding her ladyship. The best English people abroad were shy of making her acquaintance; her manners were not the most refined; her origin was lamentably low and doubtful. The retired East Indians, who are to be found in considerable force in most of the continental towns frequented by English, spoke with much scorn of the disreputable old lawyer and indigo-smuggler her father, and of Amory, her first husband, who had been mate of the Indiaman in which Miss Snell came out to join her father at Calcutta. Neither father nor daughter were in society at Calcutta, or had ever been heard of at Government House. Old Sir Jasper Rogers, who had been Chief Justice of Calcutta, had once said to his wife, that he could tell a queer story about Lady Clavering's first husband; but greatly to Lady Rogers's disappointment, and that of the young ladies his daughters, the old judge could never be got to reveal that mystery.
They were all, however, glad enough to go to Lady Clavering's parties, when her ladyship took the Hotel Bouilli in the Rue Grenelle at Paris, and blazed out in the polite world there in the winter of 183-. The Faubourg St. Germain took her up. Viscount Bagwig, our excellent embassador, paid her marked attention. The princes of the family frequented her salons. The most rigid and noted of the English ladies resident in the French capital, acknowledged and countenanced her; the virtuous Lady Elderbury, the severe Lady Rockminster, the venerable Countess of Southdown – people, in a word, renowned for austerity, and of quite a dazzling moral purity: – so great and beneficent an influence had the possession of ten (some said twenty) thousand a year exercised upon Lady Clavering's character and reputation. And her munificence and good-will were unbounded. Any body (in society) who had a scheme of charity was sure to find her purse open. The French ladies of piety got money from her to support their schools and convents; she subscribed indifferently for the Armenian patriarch; for Father Barbarosa, who came to Europe to collect funds for his monastery on Mount Athos; for the Baptist Mission to Quashyboo, and the Orthodox Settlement in Feefawfoo, the largest and most savage of the Cannibal Islands. And it is on record of her, that, on the same day on which Madame de Cricri got five Napoleons from her in support of the poor persecuted Jesuits, who were at that time in very bad odor in France, Lady Budelight put her down in her subscription-list for the Rev. J. Ramshorn, who had had a vision which ordered him to convert the Pope of Rome. And more than this, and for the benefit of the worldly, her ladyship gave the best dinners, and the grandest balls and suppers, which were known at Paris during that season.
And it was during this time, that the good-natured lady must have arranged matters with her husband's creditors in England, for Sir Francis re-appeared in his native country, without fear of arrest; was announced in the Morning Post, and the county paper, as having taken up his residence at Mivart's Hotel; and one day the anxious old housekeeper at Clavering House beheld a carriage and four horses drive up the long avenue, and stop before the moss-grown steps in front of the vast melancholy portico.
Three gentlemen were in the carriage – an open one. On the back seat was our old acquaintance, Mr. Tatham of Chatteries, while in the places of honor sate a handsome and portly gentleman enveloped in mustaches, whiskers, fur collars, and braiding, and by him a pale, languid man, who descended feebly from the carriage, when the little lawyer, and the gentleman in fur, had nimbly jumped out of it.
They walked up the great moss-grown steps to the hall-door, and a foreign attendant, with ear-rings, and a gold-laced cap, pulled strenuously at the great bell-handle at the cracked and sculptured gate. The bell was heard clanging loudly through the vast, gloomy mansion. Steps resounded presently upon the marble pavement of the hall within; and the doors opened, and, finally, Mrs. Blenkinsop, the housekeeper, Polly, her aid-de-camp, and Smart, the keeper, appeared, bowing humbly.
Smart, the keeper, pulled the wisp of hay-colored hair which adorned his sunburned forehead, kicked out his left heel, as if there were a dog biting at his calves, and brought down his head to a bow. Old Mrs. Blenkinsop dropped a courtesy. Little Polly, her aid-de-camp, made a courtesy, and several rapid bows likewise; and Mrs. Blenkinsop, with a great deal of emotion, quavered out, "Welcome to Clavering, Sir Francis. It du my poor eyes good to see one of the family once more."
The speech and the greetings were all addressed to the grand gentleman in fur and braiding, who wore his hat so magnificently on one side, and twirled his mustaches so royally. But he burst out laughing, and said, "You've saddled the wrong horse, old lady – I'm not Sir Francis Clavering what's come to revisit the halls of my ancestors. Friends and vassals! behold your rightful lord!"
And he pointed his hand toward the pale, languid gentleman, who said, "Don't be an ass, Ned."
"Yes, Mrs. Blenkinsop, I'm Sir Francis Clavering; I recollect you quite well. Forgot me, I suppose? – How-dy-do?" and he took the old lady's trembling hand; and nodded in her astonished face, in a not unkind manner.
Mrs. Blenkinsop declared upon her conscience that she would have known Sir Francis any where, that he was the very image of Sir Francis his father, and of Sir John who had gone before.
"O yes – thanky – of course – very much obliged – and that sort of thing," Sir Francis said, looking vacantly about the hall. "Dismal old place, ain't it Ned? Never saw it but once, when my governor quarreled with my gwandfather, in the year twenty-thwee."
"Dismal? – beautiful! – the Castle of Otranto! – the Mysteries of Udolpho, by Jove!" said the individual addressed as Ned. "What a fire-place! You might roast an elephant in it. Splendid carved gallery! Inigo Jones, by Jove! I'd lay five to two it's Inigo Jones."
"The upper part by Inigo Jones; the lower was altered by the eminent Dutch architect, Vanderputty, in George the First his time, by Sir Richard, fourth baronet," said the housekeeper.
"O, indeed," said the baronet. "Gad, Ned, you know every thing."
"I know a few things, Frank," Ned answered. "I know that's not a Snyders over the mantel-piece – bet you three to one it's a copy. We'll restore it, my boy. A lick of varnish, and it will come out wonderfully, sir. That old fellow in the red gown, I suppose, is Sir Richard."
"Sheriff of the county, and sate in parliament in the reign of Queen Anne," said the housekeeper, wondering at the stranger's knowledge; "that on the right is Theodosia, wife of Harbottle, second baronet, by Lely, represented in the character of Venus, the Goddess of Beauty – her son Gregory, the third baronet, by her side, as Cupid, God of Love, with a bow and arrows; that on the next panel, is Sir Rupert, made a knight banneret by Charles the First, and whose property was confuscated by Oliver Cromwell."
"Thank you – needn't go on, Mrs. Blenkinsop," said the baronet. "We'll walk about the place ourselves. Frosch, give me a cigar. Have a cigar, Mr. Tatham?"
Little Mr. Tatham tried a cigar which Sir Francis's courier handed to him, and over which the lawyer spluttered fearfully, "Needn't come with us, Mrs. Blenkinsop. What's-his-name – you – Smart – feed the horses and wash their mouths. Shan't stay long. Come along, Strong, – I know the way; I was here in twenty-thwee, at the end of my gwandfather's time." And Sir Francis and Captain Strong, for such was the style and title of Sir Francis's friend, passed out of the hall into the reception-rooms, leaving the discomfited Mrs. Blenkinsop to disappear by a side-door, which led to her apartments, now the only habitable rooms in the long-uninhabited mansion.
It was a place so big that no tenant could afford to live in it; and Sir Francis and his friend walked through room after room, admiring their vastness, and dreary and deserted grandeur. On the right of the hall door were the saloons and drawing-rooms, and on the other side the oak room, the parlor, the grand dining-room, the library, where Pen had found books in old days. Round three sides of the hall ran a gallery, by which, and corresponding passages, the chief bed-rooms were approached, and of which many were of stately proportions and exhibited marks of splendor. On the second story was a labyrinth of little discomfortable garrets, destined for the attendants of the great folks who inhabited the mansion in the days when it was first built; and I do not know any more cheering mark of the increased philanthropy of our own times, than to contrast our domestic architecture with that of our ancestors, and to see how much better servants and poor are cared for now, than in times when my lord and my lady slept under gold canopies, and their servants lay above them not so airy or so clean as stables are now.
Up and down the house the two gentlemen wandered, the owner of the mansion being very silent and resigned about the pleasure of possessing it; whereas, the captain, his friend, examined the premises with so much interest and eagerness, that you would have thought he was the master, and the other the indifferent spectator of the place. "I see capabilities in it – capabilities in it, sir," cried the captain. "Gad, sir, leave it to me, and I'll make it the pride of the country, at a small expense. What a theater we can have in the library here, the curtains between the columns which divide the room! What a famous room for a galop! it will hold the whole shire. We'll hang the morning parlor with the tapestry in your second salon in the Rue de Grenelle, and furnish the oak room with the Moyen-age cabinets and the armor. Armor looks splendid against black oak, and there's a Venice glass in the Quai Voltaire, which will suit that high mantle-piece to an inch, sir. The long saloon, white and crimson of course; the drawing-room yellow satin; and the little drawing-room light blue, with lace over – hay?"
"I recollect my old governor caning me in that little room," Sir Francis said, sententiously; "he always hated me, my old governor."
"Chintz is the dodge, I suppose, for my lady's rooms – the suite in the landing, to the south, the bed-room, the sitting-room, and the dressing-room. We'll throw a conservatory out, over the balcony. Where will you have your rooms?"
"Put mine in the north wing," said the baronet, with a yawn, "and out of the reach of Miss Amory's confounded piano. I can't bear it. She's scweeching from morning till night."
The captain burst out laughing. He settled the whole further arrangements of the house in the course of their walk through it; and, the promenade ended, they went into the steward's room, now inhabited by Mrs. Blenkinsop, and where Mr. Tatham was sitting, poring over a plan of the estate, and the old housekeeper had prepared a collation in honor of her lord and master.
Then they inspected the kitchen and stables, about both of which Sir Francis was rather interested, and Captain Strong was for examining the gardens: but the baronet said, "D – the gardens, and that sort of thing!" and finally, he drove away from the house as unconcernedly as he had entered it; and that night the people of Clavering learned that Sir Francis Clavering had paid a visit to the Park, and was coming to live in the county.
When this fact came to be known at Chatteries, all the folks in the place were set in commotion: High Church and Low Church, half-pay captains and old maids and dowagers, sporting squireens of the vicinage, farmers, tradesmen, and factory people – all the population in and round about the little place. The news was brought to Fairoaks, and received by the ladies there, and by Mr. Pen, with some excitement. "Mrs. Pybus says there is a very pretty girl in the family, Arthur," Laura said, who was as kind and thoughtful upon this point as women generally are: "a Miss Amory, Lady Clavering's daughter by her first marriage. Of course, you will fall in love with her as soon as she arrives."
Helen cried out, "Don't talk nonsense, Laura." Pen laughed, and said, "Well, there is the young Sir Francis for you."
"He is but four years old," Miss Laura replied. "But I shall console myself with that handsome officer, Sir Francis's friend. He was at church last Sunday, in the Clavering pew, and his mustaches were beautiful."
Indeed, the number of Sir Francis's family (whereof the members have all been mentioned in the above paragraphs) was pretty soon known in his town, and every thing else, as nearly as human industry and ingenuity could calculate, regarding his household. The Park avenue and grounds were dotted now with town folks, of the summer evenings, who made their way up to the great house, peered about the premises, and criticised the improvements which were taking place there. Loads upon loads of furniture arrived in numberless vans from Chatteries and London; and numerous as the vans were, there was not one but Captain Glanders knew what it contained, and escorted the baggage up to the Park House.
He and Captain Edward Strong had formed an intimate acquaintance by this time. The younger captain occupied those very lodgings at Clavering, which the peaceful Smirke had previously tenanted, and was deep in the good graces of Madame Fribsby, his landlady; and of the whole town, indeed. The captain was splendid in person and raiment; fresh-colored, blue-eyed, black-whiskered, broad-chested, athletic – a slight tendency to fullness did not take away from the comeliness of his jolly figure – a braver soldier never presented a broader chest to the enemy. As he strode down Clavering High-street, his hat on one side, his cane clanking on the pavement, or waving round him in the execution of military cuts and soldatesque man[oe]uvres – his jolly laughter ringing through the otherwise silent street – he was as welcome as sunshine to the place, and a comfort to every inhabitant in it.
On the first market-day he knew every pretty girl in the market: he joked with all the women; had a word with the farmers about their stock, and dined at the Agricultural Ordinary at the Clavering Arms, where he set them all dying with laughing by his fun and jokes. "Tu be sure he be a vine feller, tu be sure that he be," was the universal opinion of the gentlemen in top-boots. He shook hands with a score of them, as they rode out of the inn-yard on their old nags, waving his hat to them splendidly as he smoked his cigar in the inn-gate. In the course of the evening he was free of the landlady's bar, knew what rent the landlord paid, how many acres he farmed, how much malt he put in his strong beer; and whether he ever run in a little brandy, unexcised by kings, from Baymouth, or the fishing villages along the coast.
He had tried to live at the great house first; but it was so dull he couldn't stand it. "I am a creature born for society," he told Captain Glanders. "I'm down here to see Clavering's house set in order; for between ourselves, Frank has no energy, sir, no energy; he's not the chest for it, sir (and he threw out his own trunk as he spoke); but I must have social intercourse. Old Mrs. Blenkinsop goes to bed at seven, and takes Polly with her. There was nobody but me and the Ghost for the first two nights at the great house, and I own it, sir, I like company. Most old soldiers do."
Glanders asked Strong where he had served? Captain Strong curled his mustache, and said with a laugh, that the other might almost ask where he had not served. "I began, sir, as cadet of Hungarian Uhlans, and when the war of Greek independence broke out, quitted that service in consequence of a quarrel with my governor, and was one of seven who escaped from Missolonghi, and was blown up in one of Botzaris's fireships, at the age of seventeen. I'll show you my Cross of the Redeemer, if you'll come over to my lodgings and take a glass of grog with me, captain, this evening. I've a few of those baubles in my desk. I've the White Eagle of Poland; Skrzynecki gave it me" (he pronounced Skrzynecki's name with wonderful accuracy and gusto); "upon the field of Ostrolenka, I was a lieutenant of the fourth regiment, sir, and we marched through Diebitsch's lines – bang thro' 'em into Prussia, sir, without firing a shot. Ah, captain, that was a mismanaged business. I received this wound by the side of the king before Oporto – where he would have pounded the stock-jobbing Pedroites, had Bourmont followed my advice; and I served in Spain with the king's troops, until the death of my dear friend, Zumalacarreguy, when I saw the game was over, and hung up my toasting iron, captain. Alava offered me a regiment, the Queen's Muleteros; but I couldn't – damme, I couldn't – and now, sir, you know Ned Strong – the Chevalier Strong they call me abroad – as well as he knows himself."
In this way almost every body in Clavering came to know Ned Strong. He told Madame Fribsby, he told the landlord of the George, he told Baker at the reading-rooms, he told Mrs. Glanders, and the young ones, at dinner: and, finally, he told Mr. Arthur Pendennis, who, yawning into Clavering one day, found the Chevalier Strong in company with Captain Glanders; and who was delighted with his new acquaintance.
Before many days were over, Captain Strong was as much at home in Helen's drawing-room as he was in Madame Fribsby's first floor; and made the lonely house very gay with his good humor and ceaseless flow of talk. The two women had never before seen such a man. He had a thousand stories about battles and dangers to interest them – about Greek captives, Polish beauties, and Spanish nuns. He could sing scores of songs, in half a dozen languages, and would sit down to the piano and troll them off in a rich manly voice. Both the ladies pronounced him to be delightful – and so he was; though, indeed, they had not had much choice of man's society as yet, having seen in the course of their lives but few persons, except old Portman and the major, and Mr. Pen, who was a genius, to be sure; but then your geniuses are somewhat flat and moody at home.
And Captain Strong acquainted his new friends at Fairoaks, not only with his own biography, but with the whole history of the family now coming to Clavering. It was he who had made the marriage between his friend Frank and the widow Amory. She wanted rank, and he wanted money. What match could be more suitable? He organized it; he made those two people happy. There was no particular romantic attachment between them; the widow was not of an age or a person for romance, and Sir Francis, if he had his game at billiards, and his dinner, cared for little besides. But they were as happy as people could be. Clavering would return to his native place and country, his wife's fortune would pay his encumbrances off, and his son and heir would be one of the first men in the county.
"And Miss Amory?" Laura asked. Laura was uncommonly curious about Miss Amory.
Strong laughed. "Oh, Miss Amory is a muse – Miss Amory is a mystery – Miss Amory is a femme incomprise." "What is that?" asked simple Mrs. Pendennis – but the chevalier gave her no answer; perhaps could not give her one. "Miss Amory paints, Miss Amory writes poems, Miss Amory composes music, Miss Amory rides like Diana Vernon. Miss Amory is a paragon, in a word."
"I hate clever women," said Pen.
"Thank you," said Laura. For her part she was sure she should be charmed with Miss Amory, and quite longed to have such a friend. And with this she looked Pen full in the face, as if every word the little hypocrite said was gospel truth.
Thus, an intimacy was arranged and prepared beforehand between the Fairoaks family and their wealthy neighbors at the Park; and Pen and Laura were to the full as eager for their arrivals, as even the most curious of the Clavering folks. A Londoner, who sees fresh faces and yawns at them every day, may smile at the eagerness with which country people expect a visitor. A cockney comes among them, and is remembered by his rural entertainers for years after he has left them, and forgotten them very likely – floated far away from them on the vast London sea. But the islanders remember long after the mariner has sailed away, and can tell you what he said, and what he wore, and how he looked and how he laughed. In fine, a new arrival is an event in the country, not to be understood by us, who don't and had rather not, know who lives next door.
When the painters and upholsterers had done their work in the house, and so beautified it, under Captain Strong's superintendence, that he might well be proud of his taste, that gentleman announced that he should go to London, where the whole family had arrived by this time, and should speedily return to establish them in their renovated mansion.
Detachments of domestics preceded them. Carriages came down by sea, and were brought over from Baymouth by horses which had previously arrived under the care of grooms and coachmen. One day the "Alacrity" coach brought down on its roof two large and melancholy men, who were dropped at the park lodge with their trunks, and who were Messieurs Frederic and James, metropolitan footmen, who had no objection to the country, and brought with them state and other suits of the Clavering uniform.
On another day, the mail deposited at the gate a foreign gentleman, adorned with many ringlets and chains. He made a great riot at the lodge gate to the keeper's wife (who, being a West-country woman, did not understand his English or his Gascon French), because there was no carriage in waiting to drive him to the house, a mile off, and because he could not walk entire leagues in his fatigued state and varnished boots. This was Monsieur Alcide Mirobolant, formerly Chef of his Highness the Duc de Borodino, of H. Eminence Cardinal Beccafico, and at present Chef of the bouche of Sir Francis Clavering, Baronet: – Monsieur Mirobolant's library, pictures, and piano, had arrived previously in charge of the intelligent young Englishman, his aid-de-camp. He was, moreover, aided by a professed female cook, likewise from London, who had inferior females under her orders.
He did not dine in the steward's room, but took his nutriment in solitude in his own apartments, where a female servant was affected to his private use. It was a grand sight to behold him in his dressing-gown composing a menu. He always sate down and played the piano for some time before that. If interrupted, he remonstrated pathetically with his little maid. Every great artist, he said, had need of solitude to perfectionate his works.
But we are advancing matters, in the fullness of our love and respect for Monsieur Mirobolant, and bringing him prematurely on the stage.
The Chevalier Strong had a hand in the engagement of all the London domestics, and, indeed, seemed to be the master of the house. There were those among them who said he was the house-steward, only he dined with the family. Howbeit, he knew how to make himself respected, and two of by no means the least comfortable rooms of the house were assigned to his particular use.
He was walking upon the terrace finally upon the eventful day, when, amid an immense jangling of bells from Clavering Church, where the flag was flying, an open carriage and one of those traveling chariots or family arks, which only English philo-progenitiveness could invent, drove rapidly with foaming horses through the park gates, and up to the steps of the hall. The two battans of the sculptured door flew open. Two superior officers in black, the large and melancholy gentlemen, now in livery with their hair in powder, the country menials engaged to aid them, were in waiting in the hall, and bowed like tall elms when autumn winds wail in the park. Through this avenue passed Sir Francis Clavering with a most unmoved face; Lady Clavering with a pair of bright black eyes, and a good-humored countenance, which waggled and nodded very graciously: Master Francis Clavering, who was holding his mamma's skirt (and who stopped the procession to look at the largest footman, whose appearance seemed to strike the young gentleman), and Miss Blandy, governess to Master Francis, and Miss Amory, her ladyship's daughter, giving her arm to Captain Strong. It was summer, but fires of welcome were crackling in the great hall chimney, and in the rooms which the family were to occupy.
Monsieur Mirobolant had looked at the procession from one of the lime-trees in the avenue. "Elle est la," he said, laying his jeweled hand on his richly-embroidered velvet waistcoat with glass buttons. "Je t'ai vue, je te bénis, O ma sylphide, O mon ange!" and he dived into the thicket, and made his way back to his furnaces and saucepans.
The next Sunday the same party which had just made its appearance at Clavering Park, came and publicly took possession of the ancient pew in the church, where so many of the baronet's ancestors had prayed, and were now kneeling in effigy. There was such a run to see the new folks, that the Low Church was deserted, to the disgust of its pastor; and as the state barouche, with the grays and coachman in silver wig, and solemn footmen, drew up at the old churchyard gate, there was such a crowd assembled there as had not been seen for many a long day. Captain Strong knew every body, and saluted for all the company – the country people vowed my lady was not handsome, to be sure, but pronounced her uncommon fine dressed, as indeed she was – with the finest of shawls, the finest of pelisses, the brilliantest of bonnets and wreaths, and a power of rings, cameos, brooches, chains, bangles, and other nameless gimcracks; and ribbons of every breadth and color of the rainbow flaming on her person. Miss Amory appeared meek and dove-color like a vestal virgin – while Master Francis was in the costume then prevalent of Rob Roy Macgregor, a celebrated Highland outlaw. The baronet was not more animated than ordinarily – there was a happy vacuity about him which enabled him to face a dinner, a death, a church, a marriage, with the same indifferent ease.
