"Let us have a glimpse of this scion from a noble stock," said Lady Juliana, mimicking the accent of the poor spinsters, as she rose and ran to the window.
"Good heavens, Henry! do come and behold this equipage;" and she laughed with childish glee as she pointed to a plain, old-fashioned whisky, with a large top. A tall handsome young man now alighted, and lifted out a female figure, so enveloped in a cloak that eyes less penetrating than Lady Juliana's could not, at a single glance, have discovered her to be a "frightful quiz."
"Only conceive the effect of this dashing equipage in Bond Street!" continued she, redoubling her mirth at the bright idea; then suddenly stopping, and sighing—
"Ah, my pretty vis-à-vis! I remember the first time I saw you,
Henry, I was in it at a review;" and she sighed still deeper.
"True; I was then aid-de-camp to your handsome lover, the Duke of
L—————."
"Perhaps I might think him handsome now. People's tastes alter according to circumstances."
"Yours must have undergone a wonderful revolution, if you can find charms in a hunchback of fifty three."
"He is not a hunchback," returned her Ladyship warmly; "only a little high shouldered; but at any rate he has the most beautiful place and the finest house in England."
Douglas saw the storm gathering on the brow of his capricious wife, and clasping her in his arms, "Are you indeed so changed, my Julia, that you have forgot the time when you used to declare you would prefer a desert with your Henry to a throne with another."
"No, certainly, not changed; but—I—I did not very well know then what a desert was; or, at least, I had formed rather a different idea of it."