George Sand's hero apostrophises _la derniere Aldini_. Yet I could not
think her stupid. The universal instinct honours beauty. It is so
difficult to believe it either dull or base. In virtue of some mysterious
harmonies it is 'the image of God,' and must, we feel, enclose the
God-like; so I suppose I felt, for though I wished to think her stupid, I
could not. She was not exactly languid, but a grave and listless beauty,
and a splendid beauty for all that.

I told her my early recollections of Brandon and Gylingden, and how I
remembered her a baby, and said some graceful trifles on that theme,
which I fancied were likely to please. But they were only received, and
led to nothing. In a little while in comes Lord Chelford, always natural
and pleasant, and quite unconscious of his peerage--he was above it, I
think--and chatted away merrily with that handsome animated blonde--who
on earth, could she be?--and did not seem the least chilled in the stiff
and frosted presence of his mother, but was genial and playful even with
that Spirit of the Frozen Ocean, who received his affectionate trifling
with a sort of smiling, though wintry pride and complacency, reflecting
back from her icy aspects something of the rosy tints of that kindly
sunshine.

I thought I heard him call the young lady Miss Lake, and there rose
before me an image of an old General Lake, and a dim recollection of some
reverse of fortune. He was--I was sure of that--connected with the
Brandon family; and was, with the usual fatality, a bit of a _mauvais
sujet_. He had made away with his children's money, or squandered his
own; or somehow or another impoverished his family not creditably. So I
glanced at her, and Miss Brandon divined, it seemed, what was passing in
my mind, for she said:--