"Two of the finest fortunes in England, by George! they ought to come together, if only just for the fun of the thing! Not that she is a bit in love with him—I'll eat my hat if she is! What a pity you ain't goin' to be Lord Ironsides, Barty!"
Barty frankly confessed he shouldn't much object, for one.
"But, 'ni l'or ni la grandeur ne nous rendent heureux,' as we used to be taught at school."
"Ah, that's all gammon; wait till you're my age, my young friend, and as poor as I am," said Beresford Duff. And so the two friends talked on, Mentor and Telemachus—and we needn't listen any further.
Part Seventh
"Old winter was gone
In his weakness back to the mountains hoar,
And the spring came down
From the planet that hovers upon the shore
Where the sea of sunlight encroaches
On the limits of wintry night;
If the land, and the air, and the sea
Rejoice not when spring approaches,
We did not rejoice in thee,
Ginevra!"
—Shelley.
"Old winter was gone
In his weakness back to the mountains hoar,
And the spring came down
From the planet that hovers upon the shore
Where the sea of sunlight encroaches
On the limits of wintry night;
If the land, and the air, and the sea
Rejoice not when spring approaches,
We did not rejoice in thee,
Ginevra!"
—Shelley.
Riffrath, besides its natives and its regular English colony of residents, had a floating population that constantly changed. And every day new faces were to be found drinking tea with Mr. Beresford Duff—and all these faces were well known in society at home, you may be sure; and Barty made capital caricatures of them all, which were treasured up and carried back to England; one or two of them turn up now and then at a sale at Christie's and fetch a great price. I got a little pen‑and‑ink outline of Captain Reece there, drawn before he came into the title. I had to give forty‑seven pounds ten for it, not only because it was a speaking likeness of the late Lord Ironsides as a young man, but on account of the little "B. J." in the corner.