counterbalanced by a sense of the almost ludicrous contrast between this
gracious majesty of deportment and the insignificant figure, with the
boyish beardless face, by which it was assumed. Lord Castleton did not
content himself with a mere bow at our introduction. Much to my wonder
how he came by the information he displayed, he made me a little
speech after the manner of Louis XIV. to a provincial noble, studiously
modelled upon that royal maxim of urbane policy which instructs a king
that he should know something of the birth, parentage, and family of his
meanest gentleman. It was a little speech in which my father's learning
and my uncle's services and the amiable qualities of your humble servant
were neatly interwoven, delivered in a falsetto tone, as if learned
by heart, though it must have been necessarily impromptu; and then,
reseating himself, he made a gracious motion of the head and hand, as if
to authorize me to do the same.

Conversation succeeded, by galvanic jerks and spasmodic starts,--a
conversation that Lord Castleton contrived to tug so completely out of
poor Sir Sedleys ordinary course of small and polished small-talk
that that charming personage, accustomed, as he well deserved, to be
Coryphxus at his own table, was completely silenced. With his light
reading, his rich stores of anecdote, his good-humored knowledge of the
drawing-room world, he had scarce a word that would fit into the great,
rough, serious matters which Lord Castleton threw upon the table as he
nibbled his toast. Nothing but the most grave and practical subjects of
human interest seemed to attract this future leader of mankind. The
fact is that Lord Castleton had been taught everything that relates to
property,--a knowledge which embraces a very wide circumference. It
had been said to him, "You will be an immense proprietor: knowledge
is essential to your self-preservation. You will be puzzled, bubbled,
ridiculed, duped every day of your life if you do not make yourself
acquainted with all by which property is assailed or defended,
impoverished or increased. You have a vast stake in the country, you
must learn all the interests of Europe,--nay, of the civilized world;
for those interests react on the country, and the interests of the
country are of the greatest possible consequence to the interests of the
Marquis of Castleton." Thus the state of the Continent; the policy of
Metternich; the condition of the Papacy; the growth of Di