marriageable, would, however, have been more noteworthy than it was
if he had not been known to belong to a family eminent for their
eccentricities. Not a man of all his race but had possessed some
marked peculiarity. His father, bibliomaniac though he was, would
never treat a man or a woman with decency, who mentioned Shakspeare
to him, nor would he acknowledge to his dying day any excellence in
that divine poet beyond a happy way of putting words together. Mr.
Blake's uncle hated all members of the legal profession, and as for
his grandfather--but you have heard what a mania of dislike he had
against that simple article of diet, fish; now his friends were
obliged to omit it from their bills of fare whenever they expected him
to dinner. If then Mr. Blake chose to have any pet antipathy--as for
women for instance--he surely had precedent enough in his own family
to back him. However, it was whispered in my ear by one gentleman, a
former political colleague of his who had been with him in
Washington, that he was known at one time to show considerable
attention to Miss Evelyn Blake, that cousin of his who has since made
such a brilliant thing of it by marrying, and straightway losing by
death, a wealthy old scapegrace of a French noble, the Count De
Mirac. But that was not a matter to be talked about, Madame the
Countess being free at present and in New York, though to all
appearance upon anything but pleasant terms with her quondam admirer.

Remembering the picture I had seen in Mr. Blake's private apartment, I
asked if this lady was a brunette, and being told she was, and of the
most pronounced type, felt for the moment I had stumbled upon
something in the shape of a clue; but upon resorting to Mr. Gryce with
my information, he shook his head with a short laugh and told me I
would have to dive deeper than that if I wanted to fish up the truth
lying at the bottom of this well.