“Well, there is a vulgar prejudice existing in favor of bread and butter, and neither of the three items mentioned will exactly supply me with that useful article. I intend trying the matrimonial dodge, some day, if I can pick up anything under fifty, with three or four thousand a year, who wants a nice youth to spend it for her.”
“Love, of course, being out of the question.”
“Love!” said the guardsman, contemptuously. “I lost all faith in that article since I was fourteen years old, when I fell in love with our cook, a young lady of six-and-thirty. My father forbade the banns; she ran off with a hump-backed chimney-sweep, and I awoke to the unpleasant consciousness that ‘Love’s young dream’ was all bosh.”
“And you have been heart whole ever since?”
“Well, I rather think so. I have felt a peculiar sensation under my vest-pocket now and then, when Kate McGregor’s black eyes met mine. But pshaw! where’s the use of talking? She’s as poor as a church-mouse, and so am I; and, unless we should set up a chandler-shop, there would be a paragraph in the Times headed: ‘Melancholy death by starvation. The bodies of an unfortune couple were found yesterday in the attic of a rickety, six-story house, and the coroner’s inquest returned a verdict of “Death for want of something to eat.” The unfortunate man was dressed in a pair of spurs and a military shako—having pawned the rest of his clothing, and held in his hand the jugular bone of a red herring half-devoured.’ Not any, thank you!”
Captain George stroked his mustache complacently, while Lord Villiers laughed.
“A pleasant picture that! Well, I shouldn’t wonder if it’s what ‘love in a cottage’ often comes to.”
A servant approached at this moment, and whispered something to Lord Villiers.
“The ladies are waiting, Jernyngham,” he said hastily. “Call Howard, and come along.”
He hastened out to the lofty hall, and at the foot of the grand staircase he was joined by Jernyngham and Howard, the second groomsman, Lord De Courcy, Earl Percy and a few other intimate family friends.