eccentric. His hair, still thick and luxuriant, was carefully powdered,
and collected into a club behind; his nether man attired in gray breeches
and pearl-coloured silk stockings; his vest of silk, opening wide at the
breast, and showing a profusion of frill, slightly sprinkled with the
pulvilio of his favourite Martinique; his three-cornered hat, placed on a
stool at his side, with a gold-headed crutch-cane (hat made rather to be
carried in the hand than worn on the head), the diamond in his shirt-
breast, the diamond on his finger, the ruffles at his wrist,--all bespoke
the gallant who had chatted with Lord Chesterfield and supped with Mrs.
Clive. On a table before him were placed two or three decanters of wine,
the fruits of the season, an enamelled snuff-box in which was set the
portrait of a female (perhaps the Chloe or Phyllis of his early love-
ditties), a lighted taper, a small china jar containing tobacco, and
three or four pipes of homely clay,--for cherry-sticks and meerschaums
were not then in fashion, and Sir Miles St. John, once a gay and
sparkling beau, now a popular country gentleman, great at county meetings
and sheep-shearing festivals, had taken to smoking, as in harmony with
his bucolic transformation. An old setter lay dozing at his feet; a
small spaniel--old, too--was sauntering lazily in the immediate
neighbourhood, looking gravely out for such stray bits of biscuit as had
been thrown forth to provoke him to exercise, and which hitherto had
escaped his attention. Half seated, half reclined on the balustrade,
apart from the baronet, but within reach of his conversation, lolled a
man in the prime of life, with an air of unmistakable and sovereign
elegance and distinction. Mr. Vernon was a guest from London; and the
London man,--the man of clubs and dinners and routs, of noon loungings
through Bond Street, and nights spent with the Prince of Wales,--seemed
stamped not more upon the careful carelessness of his dress, and upon the
worn expression of his delicate features, than upon the listless ennui,
which, characterizing both his face and attitude, appeared to take pity