low was stupendous! I conceive him present.
Who'll fire a house for me? Is it my deficiency of attraction, or a total
dearth of gallant snobs?'

The Countess was drowned. The muscles of her smiles were horribly stiff
and painful. Caroline was getting pale. Could it be accident that thus
resuscitated Mel, their father, and would not let the dead man die? Was
not malice at the bottom of it? The Countess, though she hated Mr. George
infinitely, was clear-headed enough to see that Providence alone was
trying her. No glances were exchanged between him and Laxley, or
Drummond.

Again Mel returned to his peace, and again he had to come forth.

'Who was this singular man you were speaking about just now?' Mrs.
Evremonde asked.

Lady Jocelyn answered her: 'The light of his age. The embodied protest
against our social prejudice. Combine--say, Mirabeau and Alcibiades, and
the result is the Lymport Tailor:--he measures your husband in the
morning: in the evening he makes love to you, through a series of
pantomimic transformations. He was a colossal Adonis, and I'm sorry he's
dead!'

'But did the man get into society?' said Mrs. Evremonde. 'How did he
manage that?'

'Yes, indeed! and what sort of a society!' the dowager Copping
interjected. 'None but bachelor-tables, I can assure you. Oh! I remember
him. They talked of fetching him to Dox Hall. I said, No, thank you, Tom;
this isn't your Vauxhall.'

'A sharp retort,' said Lady Jocelyn, 'a most conclusive rhyme; but you're
mistaken. Many families were glad to see him, I hear. And he only
consented to be treated like a footman when he dressed like one. The
fellow had some capital points. He fought two or three duels, and behaved
like a man. Franks wouldn't have him here, or I would have received him.
I hear that, as a conteur, he was inimitable. In short, he was a robust
Brummel, and the Regent of low life.'

This should have been Mel's final epitaph.

Unhappily, Mrs. Melville would remark, in her mincing manner, that the
idea of the admission of a tailor into society seemed very unnatural; and
Aunt Bel confessed that her experience did not comprehend it.

'As to that,' said Lady Jocelyn, 'phenomena are unnatural. The rules of
society are lightened by the exceptions. What I like in this Mel is, that
though he was a snob, and an impostor, he could still make himself
respected by his betters. He was honest, so far; he acknowledged his
tastes, which were those of Franks, Mel