ch my dear Lady Burlesdon wishes forgotten--in the year
1733, George II. sitting then on the throne, peace reigning for
the moment, and the King and the Prince of Wales being not yet at
loggerheads, there came on a visit to the English Court a certain
prince, who was afterwards known to history as Rudolf the Third of
Ruritania. The prince was a tall, handsome young fellow, marked (maybe
marred, it is not for me to say) by a somewhat unusually long, sharp and
straight nose, and a mass of dark-red hair--in fact, the nose and the
hair which have stamped the Elphbergs time out of mind. He stayed some
months in England, where he was most courteously received; yet, in
the end, he left rather under a cloud. For he fought a duel (it was
considered highly well bred of him to waive all question of his rank)
with a nobleman, well known in the society of the day, not only for his
own merits, but as the husband of a very beautiful wife. In that duel
Prince Rudolf received a severe wound, and, recovering therefrom, was
adroitly smuggled off by the Ruritanian ambassador, who had found him
a pretty handful. The nobleman was not wounded in the duel; but the
morning being raw and damp on the occasion of the meeting, he contracted
a severe chill, and, failing to throw it off, he died some six months
after the departure of Prince Rudolf, without having found leisure to
adjust his relations with his wife--who, after another two months, bore
an heir to the title and estates of the family of Burlesdon. This lady
was the Countess Amelia, whose picture my sister-in-law wished to remove
from the drawing-room in Park Lane; and her husband was James, fifth
Earl of Burlesdon and twenty-second Baron Rassendyll, both in the
peerage of England, and a Knight of the Garter. As for Rudolf, he went
back to Ruritania, married a wife, and ascended the throne, whereon his
progeny in the direct line have sat from then till this very hour--with
one short interval. And, finally, if you walk through the picture
galleries at Burlesdon, among the fifty portraits or so of the last
century and a half, you will find five or six, including that of the
sixth earl, distinguished by long, sharp, straight noses and a quantity
of dark-red hair; these five or six have also blue eyes, whereas among
the Rassendylls dark eyes are the commoner.

That is the explanation, and I am glad to have finished it: the
blemishes on honourable lineage are a delicate subject, and certainly