She had all the peerage—"the Englishman's second Bible"—committed to memory; and, through the pages of Burke and Debrett, knew all the available and suitable heirs presumptive by rote—their ages, rank, title, and order of precedence; for it was among the strawberry leaves she chiefly expected to find a husband for her daughter—a marquis at least; and as she swept out of the room, with a velvet train like a coronation robe, she cast a backward glance to see to whose care that fair lady was confided.
Seeing Berkeley paired off with Miss Wilford, I hastened towards Lady Louisa. With her I was sufficiently intimate to have offered my arm.
As I have stated, we had met frequently before, at Canterbury, Bath, and elsewhere. Her society had been to me a source of greater pleasure and excitement than that of any other woman in whose way chance had thrown me.
Her rank, as the daughter of an earl, and her rare beauty had dazzled me, while her coquetry had piqued my vanity; though I imagined that, without discovering the deep interest she excited in my heart, I had taught her to view me as an object of more interest than other men.
I approached, and she received me calmly, placidly, with a bright but conventional smile, from which I could augur or gather nothing.
In her there was none of the clamorous tremor which I felt in my own breast, where something of annoyance at the coldness of her mother's bow was rankling.
"Lady Louisa—permit me," said I, proffering my arm.
"Too late, Mr. Norcliff. I am already engaged," she replied, rising, and placing her pretty gloved hand on the arm of old General Rammerscales, who, bowing and smiling with gratified vanity, remarked to me in passing—
"Been to India, I presume?"
"Yes, general, and Rangoon, too."