temporary supply, or an additional demand upon his generosity."--"Hang
your old uncle!" replied Lady Mary, pouting and trying to look
ill-tempered in the face of Lord Henry's good-natured remonstrance,--"I
never ask a favour for myself, or solicit you to take the recreation
necessary to your own health and that of your family, but I am pestered
with the revised musty maxims of your dead old uncle. He has been
consigned to the earth these ten years, and ~288~~if it were not for the
ten thousand per annum he left us, ought long since to have shared the
fate of his ancestry, whose names were never heard more of than the
tributary tablet imparts to the eye of curiosity in a country church,
and within whose limits all inquiry ends." "Gratitude, Lady Mary, if
not respect for my feelings, should preserve that good man's name
from reproach." Lord Henry's eye was unusually expressive--he
continued:--"The coronet that graces your own soul-inspiring face would
lack the lustre of its present brilliancy, but for the generous bequest
of the old city banker, whose _plum_ was the _sweetest windfall_ that
ever dropt into the empty purse of the poor possessor of an ancient
baronial title. The old battlements of Crackenbury have stood many a
siege, 'tis true; but that formidable engine of modern warfare, the
_catapulta_ of the auctioneer, had, but for him, proved more destructive
to its walls than the battering-ram and hoarse cannonades of ancient
rebels."

~288~~When a woman is foiled at argument, she generally has recourse
to finesse. Lady Mary had made up her mind to carry her point; finding
therefore the right column of her vengeance turned by the smart attack
of D'Almaine's raillery, she was determined to out-flank him with
her whole park of well-appointed artillery, consisting of all those
endearing, solicitous looks and expressions, that can melt the most
obdurate heart, and command a victory over the most experienced general.
It was in vain that Lord Henry urged the unusual heavy expenses of the
season in town,--the four hundred paid for the box at the opera,--or the
seven hundred for the greys and the new barouche,--the pending demand
from Messrs. Rundell's for the new service of plate,--and the splendid
alterations and additions just made to the old family hall,--with
~289~~numerous other most provoking items which the old steward had
conjured up, as if on purpose, to abridge the pleasures of Lady Mary's
intended tour. "It was