"I did not know you were such a physiognomist," said Lady Juliana. "Pray read me, my lord."
He looked over the arch face with the plausible smile, the graceful features, the peach-like bloom, and a faint shadow crossed his brow.
"You would be sinking in the first storm, Lady Juliana."
"Cousin Julie has suddenly subsided," said Harry Falconcourt, looking up to the head of the table. "A minute since she was sparkling as champagne, now she is tame as lemonade. What do you suppose has occurred, Miss Walsingham? A mutiny between her subjects?"
"Extraordinary disposition of the Brand estates down in Surrey," said a voice opposite. "They all go to a woman as hideous as one of Macbeth's witches, and the only scion of the race must either marry her or lose them."
"Is not that captain St. Udo Brand, of the Guards?" asked a gentleman in uniform.
"The same, major."
"Fine soldier, brave man. Did you see the gallant mention of him in the latest American War Gazette? Cut his way through three thousand of the enemy with his handful of Vermonters."
"A daring deed, major."
"Nothing when you know the vast nature of the man. He needed such scenes as are described in the sickening records of war to stir up the lion in him, and to bring out the gentleness too. He is the darling of his company—many a cheer, and I'll not be afraid to say a blessing also has greeted him in his tender visits to his suffering boys."