Some of Dora's remarks about the family portraits elicited an occasional glance of reprehension from the Dowager of Naseby, who thought such relics or evidences of descent were not to be treated lightly. On my enquiring who that lady in the very low dress with the somewhat dishevelled hair was, I had for answer, "A great favourite of Charles II., Mr. Hardinge--an ancestress of ours. Papa knows her name. There was some lively scandal about her, of course. And that is her brother beside her--he in the rose-coloured doublet and black wig. He was killed in a duel about a young lady--run clean through the heart by one of the Wynnes of Llanrhaidr, at the Ring in Hyde Park."
"When men risked their lives so, love must have been very earnest in those days," said Lady Estelle.
"And very fearful," said the gentler Winny. "It is said the lady's name was engraved on the blade of the sword that slew him."
"A duel! How delightful to be the heroine of a duel!" exclaimed the volatile Dora.
"And who is that pretty woman in the sacque and puffed cap?" asked Caradoc, pointing to a brisk-looking dame in a long stomacher. She was well rouged, rather décolletée, had a roguish kissing-patch in the corner of her mouth, and looked very like Dora indeed.
"Papa's grandmother, who insisted on wearing a white rose when she was presented to the Elector at St. James's," replied Dora; "and her marriage to the heir of Craigaderyn is chronicled in the fashion of the Georgian era, by gossipping Mr. Sylvanus Urban, as that of 'Mistress Betty Temple, an agreeable and modest young lady with 50,000l. fortune, from the eastward of Temple Bar.' I don't think people were such tuft-hunters in those days as they are now. Do you think so, Mr. Guilfoyle? O, I am sure, that if all we read in novels is true, there must have been more romantic marriages and much more honest love long ago than we find in society now. What do you say to this, Estelle?"
But the fair Estelle only fanned herself, and replied by a languid smile, that somehow eluded when it might have fallen on me. So while we lingered over the dessert (the pineapples, peaches, grapes, and so forth being all the produce of Sir Madoc's own hothouses), Dora resumed:
"And so, poor Harry Hardinge, in a few weeks more you will be far away from us, and face to face with those odious Russians--in a real battle, perhaps. It is something terrible to think of! Ah, heavens, if you should be killed!" she added, as her smile certainly passed away for a moment.
"I don't think somehow there is very much danger of that--at least I can but hope--"
"Or wounded! If you should lose a leg--two legs perhaps--"