"In that house,--oh, new people! I forget their names,--but rich; in a
year or two, with luck, they may be exclusives, and forget my name. In
the other house, Carr Vipont still."

"Vipont; those dear Viponts! what of them all? Crawl they, sting they,
bask they in the sun, or are they in anxious process of a change of
skin?"

"Hush! my dear friend: no satire on your own connections; nothing so
injudicious. I am a Vipont, too, and all for the family maxim, 'Vipont
with Vipont, and come what may!'"

"I stand rebuked. But I am no Vipont. I married, it is true, into their
house, and they married, ages ago, into mine; but no drop in the blood of
time-servers flows through the veins of the last childless Darrell.
Pardon. I allow the merit of the Vipont race; no family more excites my
respectful interest. What of their births, deaths, and marriages?"

COLONEL MORLEY.--"As to the births, Carr has just welcomed the birth of a
grandson; the first-born of his eldest son (who married last year a
daughter of the Duke of Halifax),--a promising young man, a Lord in the
Admiralty. Carr has a second son in the Hussars; has just purchased his
step: the other boys are still at school. He has three daughters too,
fine girls, admirably brought up; indeed, now I think of it, the eldest,
Honoria, might suit you, highly accomplished; well read; interests
herself in politics; a great admirer of intellect; of a very serious turn
of mind too."

DARRELL.--"A female politician with a serious turn of mind,--a farthing
rushlight in a London fog! Hasten on to subjects less gloomy. Whose