assing away--for she was a
Fitztartan, a daughter of the ducal house of Comtesbois (pronounced
County Boyce); and she's very handsome still.

Have you ever been presented to her Grace, O reader?

If so, you must have been struck by the grace of her Grace's manner,
as with a ducal gesture and a few courtly words she recognizes the
value of whatever immense achievements yours must have been to have
procured you such an honor as such an introduction, and expresses
her surprise and regret that she has not known you before. The
formula is always the same, on every possible occasion. I ought to
know, for I've had the honor of being presented to her Grace seven
times this year.

Now this lofty forgetting of your poor existence--or mine--is not
aristocratic hauteur or patrician insolence; it is _betise pure et
simple_, as they call it in France. She was a daughter of the house
of Comtesbois, and the Fitztartans were not the inventors of
gunpowder, nor was she.

But for a stately, magnificent Grande Dame of the ancient regime, to
meet for the seventh time, and be presented to--for the seventh
time--with all due ceremony in the midst of a distinguished
conservative crowd--say at a ball at Buckingham Palace--give me
Penelope, Dowager Duchess of Rumtifoozleland!

(This seems a somewhat uncalled-for digression. But, anyhow, it
shows that when it pleases me to do so I move in the very best
society--just like Barty Josselin.)

* * * * *

So here was Mr. Nobody of Nowhere taking unto himself a wife from
among the daughters of Heth; from the class he had always disliked,
the buyers cheap and the sellers dear--whose sole aim in life is the
making of money, and who are proud when they succeed and ashamed
when they fail--and getting actually fond of his future father and
mother in law, as I was!

When I laughed to him about old Gibson--John Gilpin, as we used to
call him--being a tradesman, he said:

"Yes; but what an _unsuccessful_ tradesman, my dear fellow!" as if
that in itself atoned or made amends for everything.

"Besides, he's Leah's father! And as for Mrs. Gilpin, she's a
_dear_, although she's always on pleasure bent; at all events, she's
not of a frugal mind; and she's so pretty and dresses so well--and
what a foot!--and she's got such easy manners, too; she reminds me
of dear Lady Archibald! that's a mother-in-law I shall get on
with.... I wish she didn't make such a fuss about living