ls with a
German tutor, and did not return to England for many years afterwards;
meanwhile Master Clinton grew up to the age of fourteen, increasing in
comeliness and goodness. He was very fond of his studies, much more
so than Master Francis had been, and was astonishingly forward for his
years. So my lord loved him better and better, and would scarcely ever
suffer him to be out of his sight."

"When Master Clinton was about the age I mentioned, namely, fourteen, a
gentleman of the name of Sir Clinton Manners became a constant visitor
at the house. Report said that he was always about my lady in London
at Ranelagh, and the ball-rooms and routs, and all the fine places; and
certainly he was scarcely ever from her side in the pleasure parties
at the Park. But my lady said that he was a cousin of hers, and an old
playmate in childhood, and so he was; and unhappily for her, something
more too. My lord, however, shut up in his library, did not pay any
attention to my lady's intimacy with Sir Clinton; on the contrary, as he
was a cousin and friend of hers, his lordship seemed always happy to see
him, and was the only person in the neighbourhood who had no suspicion
of what was going on."

"Oh, sir, it is a melancholy story, and I can scarcely persuade myself
to tell it. (It is really delicious wine this-six-and-twenty years old
last birthday--to say nothing of its age before I bought it.) Ah! well,
sir, the blow came at last like a thunderclap: my lady, finding disguise
was in vain, went off with Sir Clinton. Letters were discovered which
showed that they had corresponded for years; that he was her lover
before marriage; that she, in a momentary passion with him, had accepted
my lord's offer; that she had always repented her precipitation; and
that she had called her son after his name: all this, and much more,
sir, did my lord learn, as it were, at a single blow."

"He obtained a divorce, and Sir Clinton and my lady went abroad. But
from that time my lord was never the same man. Always proud and gloomy,
he now became intolerably violent and morose. He shut himself up, saw no
company of any description, rarely left the house, and never the park;
and, from being one of the gayest places in the country, sir, the
mansion became as dreary and deserted as if it had been haunted. (It is
for you to begin the second bottle, sir.)"

"But the most extraordinary change in my lord was in his conduct to
Master Clinton: from doting up