eatest heiress and the noblest blood in England?' said
Lord George haughtily.

'There's no nobler blood in Europe than mine,' answered I: 'and I tell
you I don't know whether to hope or not. But this I know, that there
were days in which, poor as I am, the great heiress did not disdain to
look down upon my poverty: and that any man who marries her passes over
my dead body to do it. It's lucky for you,' I added gloomily, 'that on
the occasion of my engagement with you, I did not know what were your
views regarding my Lady Lyndon. My poor boy, you are a lad of courage
and I love you. Mine is the first sword in Europe, and you would have
been lying in a narrower bed than that you now occupy.'

'Boy!' said Lord George: 'I am not four years younger than you are.'

'You are forty years younger than I am in experience. I have passed
through every grade of life. With my own skill and daring I have made
my own fortune. I have been in fourteen pitched battles as a private
soldier, and have been twenty-three times on the ground, and never was
touched but once; and that was by the sword of a French maitre-d'armes,
Whom I killed. I started in life at seventeen, a beggar, and am now at
seven-and-twenty, with twenty thousand guineas. Do you suppose a man
of my courage and energy can't attain anything that he dares, and that
having claims upon the widow, I will not press them?'

This speech was not exactly true to the letter (for I had multiplied my
pitched battles, my duels, and my wealth somewhat); but I saw that it
made the impression I desired to effect upon the young gentleman's
mind, who listened to my statement with peculiar seriousness, and whom I
presently left to digest it.

A couple of days afterwards I called to see him again, when I brought
with me some of the letters that had passed between me and my Lady
Lyndon. 'Here,' said I, 'look--I show it you in confidence--it is a
lock of her Ladyship's hair; here are her letters signed Calista, and
addressed to Eugenio. Here is a poem, "When Sol bedecks the mead with
light, And pallid Cynthia sheds her ray," addressed by her Ladyship to
your humble servant.'

'Calista! Eugenio! Sol bedecks the mead with light?' cried the young
lord. 'Am I dreaming? Why, my dear Barry, the widow has sent me the
very poem herself! "Rejoicing in the sunshine bright, Or musing in the
evening grey."'

I could not help laughing as he made the quotation. They were, in
fact, the very words MY Cal