course in no condition to face his acquaintances in
England. Still he was a lord--there was no denying that; Debrett and
Burke had chronicled his baptism, and the eighth baron from Hugo de
Colbrooke, who carried the helmet of his sovereign at Agincourt, was
unquestionably of the best blood of the peerage. Like your true white
feather, he wore a most _farouche_ exterior; his moustaches seemed to
bristle with pugnacity, and the expression of his eye was indescribably
martial; he walked as if he was stepping out the ground, and in his
salute he assumed the cold politeness with which a second takes off his
hat to the opposite principal in a duel; even his valet seemed to
favour the illusion, as he ostentatiously employed himself cleaning
his master's pistols, and arranging the locks, as though there was no
knowing at what moment of the day he might not be unexpectedly called to
shoot somebody.

This noble lord, I say, was a part of the household. Sir Marmaduke
finding his society rather agreeable, and the lady regarding him as the
cork-jacket on which she was to swim into the ocean of fashion at some
remote period or other of her existence.

As for the Honourable Jack Smallbranes, who was he not in love with--
or rather who was not in love with him? Poor fellow! he was born, in
his own estimation, to be the destroyer of all domestic peace; he was
created to be the ruin to all female happiness. Such a destiny might
well have filled any one with sadness and depression; most men would
have grieved over a lot which condemned them to be the origin of
suffering. Not so, Jack; he felt he couldn't help it--that it was no
affair of his if he were the best-looking fellow in the world. The thing
was so palpable; women ought to take care of themselves; he sailed under
no false flag. No, there he was, the most irresistible, well-dressed,
and handsomest fellow to be met with; and if they didn't escape--or,
to use his own expression, 'cut their lucky' in time--the fault was all
their own. If queens smiled and archduchesses looked kind upon him,
let kings and archdukes look to it. He took no unfair or underhand
advantages; he made no secret attacks, no dark advances--he carried
every fortress by assault, and in noonday. Some malicious people--
the world abounds in such--used to say that Jack's gallantries were
something like Falstaff's deeds of prowess, and that his victims were
all 'in buckram.' But who could believe it? Did not victory