“Did you—did you—know, then, my great gr-ndm-ther?” I said.
He pulled up his coat-sleeve—“Is that her name?” he said.
“Eliza ——”
There, I declare, was the very name of the kind old creature written in red on his arm.
“YOU knew her old,” he said, divining my thoughts (with his strange knack); “I knew her young and lovely. I danced with her at the Bury ball. Did I not, dear, dear Miss ——?”
As I live, he here mentioned dear gr-nny's MAIDEN name. Her maiden name was ——. Her honored married name was ——.
“She married your great gr-ndf-th-r the year Poseidon won the Newmarket Plate,” Mr. Pinto dryly remarked.
Merciful powers! I remember, over the old shagreen knife and spoon case on the sideboard in my gr-nny's parlor, a print by Stubbs of that very horse. My grandsire, in a red coat, and his fair hair flowing over his shoulders, was over the mantel-piece, and Poseidon won the Newmarket Cup in the year 1783!
“Yes; you are right. I danced a minuet with her at Bury that very night, before I lost my poor leg. And I quarrelled with your grandf——, ha!”
As he said “Ha!” there came three quiet little taps on the table—it is the middle table in the “Gray's-inn Coffee-house,” under the bust of the late Duke of W-ll-ngt-n.