Pelham | Page 7

also
pick up a little acquaintance with metaphysics, if you have any
opportunity; that sort of thing is a good deal talked about just at
present.
"I hear Lady Roseville is at Garrett Park. You must be particularly
attentive to her; you will probably now have an opportunity de faire
votre cour that may never again happen. In London, she is so much
surrounded by all, that she is quite inaccessible to one; besides, there
you will have so many rivals. Without flattery to you, I take it for
granted, that you are the best looking and most agreeable person at
Garrett Park, and it will, therefore, be a most unpardonable fault if you
do not make Lady Roseville of the same opinion. Nothing, my dear son,
is like a liaison (quite innocent of course) with a woman of celebrity in
the world. In marriage a man lowers a woman to his own rank; in an
affaire du coeur he raises himself to her's. I need not, I am sure, after
what I have said, press this point any further.
"Write to me and inform me of all your proceedings. If you mention the
people who are at Garrett Park, I can tell you the proper line of conduct
to pursue with each.
"I am sure that I need not add that I have nothing but your real good at
heart, and that I am your very affectionate mother,
"Frances Pelham.
"P.S. Never talk much to young men--remember that it is the women
who make a reputation in society."
"Well," said I, when I had read this letter, and adjusted my best curl,

"my mother is very right, and so now for Lady Roseville."
I went down stairs to breakfast. Miss Trafford and Lady Nelthorpe
were in the room talking with great interest, and, on Miss Trafford's
part, with still greater vehemence.
"So handsome," said Lady Nelthorpe, as I approached.
"Are you talking of me?" said I.
"Oh, you vanity of vanities!" was the answer. "No, we were speaking
of a very romantic adventure which has happened to Miss Trafford and
myself, and disputing about the hero of it. Miss Trafford declares he is
frightful; I say that he is beautiful. Now, you know, Mr. Pelham, as to
you--" "There can," interrupted I, "be but one opinion--but the
adventure?"
"Is this!" cried Miss Trafford, in a great fright, lest Lady Nelthorpe
should, by speaking first, have the pleasure of the narration.--"We were
walking, two or three days ago, by the sea-side, picking up shells and
talking about the "Corsair," when a large fierce--" "Man!" interrupted I.
"No, dog, (renewed Miss Trafford) flew suddenly out of a cave, under a
rock, and began growling at dear Lady Nelthorpe and me, in the most
savage manner imaginable. He would certainly have torn us to pieces if
a very tall--" "Not so very tall either," said Lady Nelthorpe.
"Dear, how you interrupt one," said Miss Trafford, pettishly; "well, a
very short man, then, wrapped up in a cloak--" "In a great coat,"
drawled Lady Nelthorpe. Miss Trafford went on without noticing the
emendation,-- "had not with incredible rapidity sprung down the rock
and--" "Called him off," said Lady Nelthorpe.
"Yes, called him off," pursued Miss Trafford, looking round for the
necessary symptoms of our wonder at this very extraordinary incident.
"What is the most remarkable," said Lady Nelthorpe, "is, that though he
seemed from his dress and appearance to be really a gentleman, he

never stayed to ask if we were alarmed or hurt--scarcely even looked at
us--" ("I don't wonder at that!" said Mr. Wormwood, who, with Lord
Vincent, had just entered the room;)--"and vanished among the rocks as
suddenly as he had appeared."
"Oh, you've seen that fellow, have you?" said Lord Vincent: "so have I,
and a devilish queer looking person he is,--
"'The balls of his broad eyes roll'd in his head, And glar'd betwixt a
yellow and a red; He looked a lion with a gloomy stare, And o'er his
eyebrows hung his matted hair.'
"Well remembered, and better applied--eh, Mr. Pelham!"
"Really," said I, "I am not able to judge of the application, since I have
not seen the hero."
"Oh! it's admirable," said Miss Trafford, "just the description I should
have given of him in prose. But pray, where, when, and how did you
see him?"
"Your question is religiously mysterious, tria juncta in uno," replied
Vincent; "but I will answer it with the simplicity of a Quaker. The other
evening I was coming home from one of Sir Lionel's preserves, and had
sent the keeper on before in order more undisturbedly to--" "Con
witticisms for dinner," said Wormwood.
"To make out the meaning of Mr. Wormwood's last work," continued
Lord Vincent. "My shortest way lay through that