‘Absence, then, with you is fatal?’
‘Really, I never did part with any one I greatly loved; but I suppose it is with me as with most persons.’
‘Yet you have resided abroad, and for many years?’
‘Yes; but I was too young then to have many friends; and, in fact, I accompanied perhaps all that I possessed.’
‘How I regret that it was not in my power to accept your kind invitation to Dacre in the Spring!’
‘Oh! My father would have been very glad to see you; but we really are dull kind of people, not at all in your way, and I really do not think that you lost much amusement.’
‘What better amusement, what more interesting occupation, could I have had than to visit the place where I passed my earliest and my happiest hours? ‘Tis nearly fifteen years since I was at Dacre.’
‘Except when you visited us at Easter. We regretted our loss.’
‘Ah! yes! except that,’ exclaimed the Duke, remembering his jäger’s call; ‘but that goes for nothing. I of course saw very little.’
‘Yet, I assure you, you made a great impression. So eminent a personage, of course, observes less than he himself is observed. We had a graphical description of you on our return, and a very accurate one, too; for I recognised your Grace to-night merely from the report of your visit.’