about making hideous faces in uttering it. She smiled at the
recollection, and thought, up to a movement of her lips, one is not
tempted to do that in saying Matthew Weyburn!




CHAPTER XV

SHOWING A SECRET FISHED WITHOUT ANGLING

That great couchant dragon of the devouring jaws and the withering
breath, known as our London world, was in expectation of an excitement
above yawns on the subject of a beautiful Lady Doubtful proposing
herself, through a group of infatuated influential friends, to a decorous
Court, as one among the ladies acceptable. The popular version of it
sharpened the sauce by mingling romance and cynicism very happily; for
the numerous cooks, when out of the kitchen, will furnish a piquant dish.
Thus, a jewel-eyed girl of half English origin (a wounded British officer
is amiably nursed in a castle near the famous Peninsula battlefield,
etc.), running wild down the streets of Seville, is picked up by Lord
Ormont, made to discard her tambourine, brought over to our shores, and
allowed the decoration of his name, without the legitimate adornment of
his title. Discontented with her position after a time, she now pushes
boldly to claim the place which will be most effective in serving her as
a bath. She has, by general consent, beauty; she must, seeing that she
counts influential friends, have witchery. Those who have seen her
riding and driving beside her lord, speak of Andalusian grace, Oriental
lustre, fit qualification for the fair slave of a notoriously susceptible
old warrior.