The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly. Lever Charles James

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СКАЧАТЬ admiration. It is simply a desire to please thrown into a thousand little graceful ways, each too slight, and too faint, to be singled out for notice, but making up a whole of wonderful captivation.”

      “Well done, diplomacy! egad! I did n’t know there was that much blood in the Foreign Office,” cried Jack, laughing, “and now I ‘m off to look after my night-lines. I quite forgot all about them till this minute.”

      “Take me with you, Jack,” said Nelly, and hastened after him, hat in hand.

      CHAPTER VIII. THE ARRIVAL OF A GREAT MAN

      It was within a quarter of eight o’clock – forty-five minutes after the usual dinner-hour – when Lord Culduff’s carriage drove up to the door.

      “The roads are atrocious down here,” said Temple, apologizing in advance for an offence which his father rarely, if ever, forgave. “Don’t you think you ought to go out to meet him, sir?” asked he, half timidly.

      “It would only create more delay; he ‘ll appear, I take it, when he is dressed,” was the curt rejoinder, but it was scarcely uttered when the door was thrown wide open, and Lord Culduff and Mr. Cutbill were announced.

      Seen in the subdued light of a drawing-room before dinner, Lord Culduff did not appear more than half his real age, and the jaunty stride and the bland smile he wore – as he made his round of acquaintance – might have passed muster for five-and-thirty; nor was the round vulgar figure of the engineer, awkward and familiar alternately, a bad foil for the very graceful attractions of his Lordship’s manner.

      “We should have been here two hours ago,” said he, “but my friend here insisted on our coming coastwise to see a wonderful bay, – a natural harbor one might call it. What’s the name, Cutbill?”

      “Portness, my Lord.”

      “Ah, to be sure, Portness. On your property, I believe?”

      “I am proud to say it is. I have seen nothing finer in the kingdom,” said Bramleigh; “and if Ireland were anything but Ireland, that harbor would be crowded with shipping, and this coast one of the most prosperous and busy shores of the island.”

      “Who knows if we may not live to see it such? Cutbill’s projects are very grand, and I declare that though I deemed them Arabian Night stories a few weeks back, I am a convert now. Another advantage we gained,” said he, turning to Marion; “we came up through a new shrubbery, which we were told had been all planned by you.”

      “My sister designed it,” said she, as she smiled and made a gesture towards Ellen.

      “May I offer you my most respectful compliments on your success? I am an enthusiast about landscape-gardening, and though our English climate gives us many a sore rebuff in our attempts, the soil and the varied nature of the surface lend themselves happily to the pursuit. I think you were at the Hague with me, Bramleigh?” asked he of Temple.

      “Does he know how late it is?” whispered Augustus to his father. “Does he know we are waiting dinner?”

      “I’ll tell him,” and Colonel Bramleigh walked forward from his place before the fire. “I’m afraid, my Lord, the cold air of our hills has not given you an appetite?”

      “Quite the contrary, I assure you. I am very hungry.”

      “By Jove, and so are we!” blurted out Jack; “and it’s striking eight this instant.”

      “What is your dinner-hour?”

      “It ought to be seven,” answered Jack.

      “Why, Cutbill, you told me nine.”

      Cutbill muttered something below his breath, and turned away; and Lord Culduff laughingly said, “I declare I don’t perceive the connection. My friend, Colonel Bramleigh, opines that a French cook always means nine-o’clock dinner. I ‘m horrified at this delay: let us make a hasty toilette, and repair our fault at once.”

      “Let me show you where you are lodged,” said Temple, not sorry to escape from the drawing-room at a moment when his friend’s character and claims were likely to be sharply criticised.

      “Cutty’s a vulgar dog,” said Jack, as they left the room. “But I ‘ll be shot if he’s not the best of the two.”

      A haughty toss of Marion’s head showed that she was no concurring party to the sentiment.

      “I ‘m amazed to see so young a man,” said Colonel Bramleigh. “In look at least, he is n’t forty.”

      “It’s all make-up,” cried Jack.

      “He can’t be a great deal under seventy, taking the list of his services. He was at Vienna as private secretary to Lord Borchester – ” As Augustus pronounced the words Lord Culduff entered the room in a fragrance of perfume and a brilliancy of color that was quite effective; for he wore his red ribbon, and his blue coat was lined with white silk, and his cheeks glowed with a bloom that youth itself could not rival.

      “Who talks of old Borchester?” said he, gayly. “My father used to tell me such stories of him. They sent him over to Hanover once, to report on the available Princesses to marry the Prince: and, egad! he played his part so well that one of them – Princess Helena I think it was – fell in love with him; and if it was ‘t that he had been married already, – May I offer my arm?” And the rest of the story was probably told as he led Miss Bramleigh in to dinner.

      Mr. Cutbill only arrived as they took their places, and slunk into a seat beside Jack, whom, of all the company, he judged would be the person he could feel most at ease with.

      “What a fop!” whispered Jack, with a glance at the peer.

      “Is n’t he an old humbug?” muttered Cutbill. “Do you know how he managed to appear in so short a time? We stopped two hours at a little inn on the road while he made his toilette; and the whole get-up – paint and padding and all – was done then. The great fur pelisse, in which he made his entrance into the drawing-room, removed, he was in full dinner-dress underneath. He’s the best actor living.”

      “Have you known him long?”

      “Oh, yes! I know all of them,” said he, with a little gesture of his hand: “that is, they take devilish good care to know me.”

      “Indeed!” exclaimed Jack, in the tone which seemed to ask for some explanation.

      “You see, here’s how it is,” said Cutbill, as he bent over his plate and talked in a tone cautiously subdued: “All those swells – especially that generation yonder – are pretty nigh aground. They have been living for forty or fifty years at something like five times their income; and if it had n’t been for this sudden rush of prosperity in England, caused by railroads, mines, quarries, or the like, these fellows would have been swept clean away. He ‘s watching me now. I ‘ll go on by-and-by. Have you any good hunting down here, Colonel Bramleigh?” asked he of the host, who sat half hid by a massive centrepiece.

      “You ‘ll have to ask my sons what it’s like; and I take it they ‘ll give you a mount too.”

      “With pleasure, Mr. Cutbill,” cried Augustus. “If we have no frost, we’ll show you some sport on Monday next.”

      “Delighted, – I like hunting of all things.”

      “And СКАЧАТЬ