But, alas! they consult me now on those matters,--force their secrets on
me. I have, Heaven knows how many votes! Poor me! Upon my word, if
Lady Ellinor was a widow, I should certainly make up to her: very clever
woman, nothing bores her." (The marquis yawned,--Sir Sedley Beaudesert
never yawned.) "Trevanion has provided for his Scotch secretary, and is
about to get a place in the Foreign Office for that young fellow Gower,
whom, between you and me, I don't like. But he has bewitched
Trevanion!"

"What sort of a person is this Mr. Gower? I remember you said that he
was clever and good-looking."

"He is both; but it is not the cleverness of youth,--he is as hard and
sarcastic as if he had been cheated fifty times, and jilted a hundred!
Neither are his good looks that letter of recommendation which a
handsome face is said to be. He has an expression of countenance very
much like that of Lord Hertford's pet bloodhound when a stranger comes
into the room. Very sleek, handsome dog the bloodhound is certainly,--
well-mannered, and I dare say exceedingly tame; but still you have but
to look at the corner of the eye to know that it is only the habit of
the drawing-room that suppresses the creature's constitutional tendency
to seize you by the throat, instead of giving you a paw. Still, this
Mr. Gower has a very striking head,--something about it Moorish or
Spanish, like a picture by Murillo--I half suspect that he is less a
Gower than a gypsy!"

"What!"--I cried, as I listened with rapt and breathless attention to
this description. "He is then very dark, with high, narrow forehead,
features slightly aquiline, but very delicate, and teeth so dazzling
that the whole face seems to sparkle when he smiles,--though it is only