He cherished a hopeless passion for a young lady in the next street who had no fortune; neither had he, nor, what is worse in an aspiring husband, any prospect of making one.
A girl came next, Julia, of abnormal plainness of feature, considerably heightened by a pimpled, sallow complexion and a furtive, untrustworthy expression. Unlike the rest of her family, she had no special qualification, but while the others enjoyed every kind of discomfort, her fortune was pleasantly counted into the Corinthian Bank, to be taken out the day a husband should present himself for her and for it, especially for it. In this land of dowered maidens young gentlemen of expensive tastes and empty purses find it feasible and honourable to incur debts on the understanding that they will be paid out of somebody’s dowry by and by. Personal looks or qualities are secondary questions, so the absence of attractions in Julia did not weigh in the eyes of her brother and mother in their anxiety to marry her.
The youngest was Andromache, as pretty as Julia was plain, resembling her brother, the redoubtable Captain Miltiades; a sweet girl, too, if suggestive of the unvarying sweetness which is another word for feebleness of character—fond of music, and showing some ability in that direction, never taking part in the family quarrels which were always raging at the table and elsewhere between the rest. But she had the tastes of the woman of warm latitudes. In the house she was rarely fit to be seen,—and she had a passion for powder, unguents and strong perfumes. She was a tolerably efficient housekeeper, and generally spent her mornings in the kitchen, superintending and helping Maria, the maid of all work, who had enough in all conscience to do to keep Captain Miltiades in clean shirts.
Captain Miltiades was not only the hero of his domestic circle, but the hero of all Greece—or so he believed, which comes to the same thing; the boldest soldier, the mightiest captain, the best horseman and dancer, and, crown in romantic imaginations, the most impecunious ornament of Athenian society. His fierce and military moustache and bronzed cheek awed beholders, and his noble brow merging into a bald crown gently fringed with short black hair, which made a thin line above his black military coat and crimson velvet collar, seemed to hold the concentrated wisdom of ages. But gallant and youthful was the spirit of Captain Miltiades—amatory, too, as behoves a son of Mars. “One may be bald and not old for that,” said his flashing dark-blue eye whenever a maiden’s thoughtful glance rested on the discrowned region. His French left much to be desired, and of other European languages he knew nothing. But then scientific was his knowledge of the gay cotillon, entrancing his movement in the waltz and mazurka; at least the young ladies of Athens thought so. However, be it known to all who care to learn noteworthy facts, Captain Miltiades was an authority on these important subjects; a kind of dancing Master of Ceremonies at the Palace, where he danced with royal partners and was amazingly in demand. But, sad to relate, nobody dreamed of falling in love with him, in spite of his military prowess and carpet-pirouetting. The ladies regarded him as a kind of amiable harlequin, and his presence and warm declarations only excited a smile on the lips of the weakest. Of course he sighed and dangled after every dot, but sighed in vain, for neither his fierce moustache nor his dark blue eyes have brought him somebody’s one figure and countless noughts of francs.
It was twelve o’clock, and Captain Miltiades might be heard galloping up the unpaved street, looking as if nothing short of a miracle could bring horse or rider to stop before they reached the overhanging point of Lycabettus. The miracle was accomplished without flinging the gallant Captain headforemost into the dust or into the nearest flowing stream, and the Captain’s military servant, Theodore, emerged from the side entrance to carry off the panting war-horse, and refresh its foaming flanks with the stable brush, while the warrior, with stern brow and dissatisfied lips under the nodding red plumes of his cap—this modern Achilles always appeared in a white heat of suppressed anger in the domestic circle—rapped at the glass door which Julia opened.
“Where is Maria?” asked Captain Miltiades.
“In the kitchen, of course, cooking the breakfast.”
“Maria! Maria!”
“Yes, sir,” cried the unfortunate servant, rushing from the steaming pilaf she was preparing, and showing a spacious bosom hardly restrained within the compass of the strained and long since colourless cloth that untidily covered it, and a ragged skirt, and fuzzy black hair that she found as much difficulty in keeping out of the soup as out of her own coal-black eyes—only far greater effort was made to accomplish the latter feat.
“Maria, the balls are commencing, and I shall be going out regularly; you must have two clean shirts for me every day. Do you hear?”