Peninsular battles and so forth--I spoke of her enthusiasm. The effect
was, to cut off all communication between us. I had only to appear, Lord
Ormont vanished. I said to myself, this is a character. However, the
very mention of him to my niece, as one of the passengers on board--
medicine, miraculous! She was up in half an hour, out pacing the deck
before evening, hardly leaning on my arm, and the colour positively
beginning to show on her cheeks again. He fled, of coarse. I had
prepared her for his eccentricities. Next morning she was out by
herself. In the afternoon Lord Ormont strode up to us his--military
step--and most courteously requested the honour of an introduction. I
had broken the ice at last; from that moment he was cordiality itself,
until--I will not say, until he had called her his own--a few little
misunderstandings!--not with his countess. You see, a resident aunt is
translated mother-in-law by husbands; though I spare them pretty
frequently; I go to friends, they travel. Here in London she must have a
duenna. The marriage at Madrid, at the Embassy:--well, perhaps it was a
step for us, for commoners, though we rank with the independent. Has her
own little pin-money--an inheritance. Perhaps Lady Eglett gives the
world her version. She may say, there was aiming at station. I reply,
never was there a more whole-hearted love-match! Absolutely the girl's
heart has been his from the period of her school-days. Oh! a little
affair--she was persecuted by a boy at a neighbouring school. Her
mistress wrote me word--a very determined Romeo young gentleman indeed--
quite alarmed about him. In the bud! I carried her off on the spot, and
snapped it effectually. Warned he meant to be desperate, I kept her away
from my house at Dover four months, place to place; and I did well. I
heard on my return, that a youth, answering to the schoolmistress's
description of him, had been calling several times, the first two months
and longer. You have me alluding to these little nonsensical nothings,
because she seemed born to create violent attachments, even at that early