family, even in his most reckless moods.

After this, we heard little from my brother. His letters were few and
short, and generally ended with petitions for money. The only
important news of him that reached us, reached us through public
channels.

He was making quite a continental reputation--a reputation, the bare
mention of which made my father wince. He had fought a duel; he had
imported a new dance from Hungary; he had contrived to get the
smallest groom that ever was seen behind a cabriolet; he had carried
off the reigning beauty among the opera-dancers of the day from all
competitors; a great French cook had composed a great French dish, and
christened it by his name; he was understood to be the "unknown
friend," to whom a literary Polish countess had dedicated her "Letters
against the restraint of the Marriage Tie;" a female German
metaphysician, sixty years old, had fallen (Platonically) in love with
him, and had taken to writing erotic romances in her old age. Such
were some of the rumours that reached my father's ears on the subject
of his son and heir!

After a long absence, he came home on a visit. How well I remember the
astonishment he produced in the whole household! He had become a
foreigner in manners and appearance. His mustachios were magnificent;
miniature toys in gold and jewellery hung in clusters from his
watch-chain; his shirt-front was a perfect filigree of lace and
cambric. He brought with him his own boxes of choice liqueurs and
perfumes; his own smart, impudent, French valet; his own travelling
bookcase of French novels, which he opened with his own golden key. He
drank nothing but chocolate in the morning; he had long interviews