‘I wonder if they do remember me at Madrid!’
‘To be sure they do. How could they forget you; how could they forget my Ratcliffe? I daresay you go to this day by the name of the handsome Englishman.’
‘Pooh! I remember when I left England before, I had no wife then, no child, but I remembered who I was, and when I thought I was the last of our race, and that I was in all probability going to spill the little blood that was spared of us in a foreign soil, oh, Constance, I do not think I ever could forget the agony of that moment. Had it been for England, I would have met my fate without a pang. No! Constance, I am an Englishman: I am proud of being an Englishman. My fathers helped to make this country what it is; no one can deny that; and no consideration in the world shall ever induce me again to quit this island.’
‘But suppose we do not quit England. Suppose we buy a small estate and live at home.’
‘A small estate at home! A small, new estate! Bought of a Mr. Hopkins, a great tallow-chandler, or some stock-jobber about to make a new flight from a Lodge to a Park. Oh no! that would be too degrading.’
‘But suppose we keep one of our own manors?’
‘And be reminded every instant of every day of those we have lost; and hear of the wonderful improvements of our successors. I should go mad.’
‘But suppose we live in London?’
‘Where?’
‘I am sure I do not know; but I should think we might get a nice little house somewhere.’