uncle's stern, dull, vulgar, regular, red-headed family, and he vowed
that he would go to London and make his fortune. Thither he went, his
aunt and cousins, who were all "serious," vowing that he was a lost boy;
and when his history opens, John had been two years in the metropolis,
inhabiting his own garrets; and a very nice compact set of apartments,
looking into the back-garden, at this moment falling vacant, the prudent
Lucy Gorgon had visited them, and vowed that she and her John should
there commence housekeeping.

All these explanations are tedious, but necessary; and furthermore, it
must be said, that as John's uncle's partner was the Liberal member for
Oldborough, so Lucy's uncle was its Ministerial representative.

This gentleman, the brother of the deceased Captain Gorgon, lived at the
paternal mansion of Gorgon Castle, and rejoiced in the name and title of
Sir George Grimsby Gorgon.

He, too, like his younger brother, had married a lady beneath his own
rank in life; having espoused the daughter and heiress of Mr. Hicks, the
great brewer at Oldborough, who held numerous mortgages on the Gorgon
property, all of which he yielded up, together with his daughter
Juliana, to the care of the baronet.

What Lady Gorgon was in character, this history will show. In person,
if she may be compared to any vulgar animal, one of her father's heavy,
healthy, broad-flanked, Roman-nosed white dray-horses might, to the
poetic mind, appear to resemble her. At twenty she was a splendid
creature, and though not at her full growth, yet remarkable for strength
and sinew; at forty-five she was as fine a woman as any in His Majesty's
dominions. Five feet seven in height, thirteen stone, her own teeth and
hair, she looked as if she were the mother of a regiment of Grenadier
Guards. She had three daughters of her own size, and at length, ten
years after the birth of the last of the young ladies, a son--one
son--George Augustus Frederick Grimsby Gorgon, the godson of a royal
duke, whose steady officer in waiting Sir George had been for many
years.

It is needless to say, after entering so largely into a description
of Lady Gorgon, that her husband was a little shrivelled wizen-faced
creature, eight inches shorter than her Ladyship. This is the way of
the world, as every single reader of this book must have remarked; for
frolic love delights to join giants and pigmies of different sexes in
the bonds of matrimony. When you saw her La