on the ocean with Cuthbert Collingwood, in our ears rings a clash of arms
long since hushed, a roar of cannon which has been silent throughout the
passing of a century, while we gauge with a grim realisation the iron that
entered into the soul of a strong man battling for his country's gain.
Then the black curtain of death shrouds that scene, and we are back once
more in the gay world of _ton_, with its petty gossip and its petty
aims.... Later, other figures move across the boards; Wellington, as the
ball-giver, the gallant _chevalier des dames_; Napoleon, in his _bonnet de
nuit_, a mysterious, saturnine figure; his subordinates, who shared his
greed without the dignity of its magnitude; next, in strange contrast,
Coke of Norfolk, the peaceful English squire, seen thus for the first
time--not as a public character, a world-wide benefactor--but in the
intimacy of his domestic life, as "Majesty," the butt of his daughter's
playful sallies, as the beloved father, the tender grandfather, a
gracious, benevolent presence. We read the romance of his daughter, that
pretty, prim courtship of a bygone day; we see her home life as a young
wife, the coming of another race of merry children; by and by, we follow
the fortunes of graceful "little Madam" with her brilliant eyes, and see
the advent of yet another lover of a later day. So the scenes shift, the
figures come and go, the great things and the small of life intermingle.
And as we read, by almost imperceptible stages, the Georgian has merged
into the Victorian, and the young generation of one age has faded into the
older generation of the next, till we are left confronted with the
knowledge, albeit difficult of credence, that both have vanished into the
mists of the Unknown.

Meanwhile, one aspect of this glimpse into the past requires but little
insistence. Among these two generations of Stanhopes a high standard of
education prevailed. This, coupled with the opportunities which they
possessed of mingling with the best-known people of their day, both in