Try if you can't forget politics,
horses, prices in the City, and grievances at the club. I hope you won't
take this freedom on my part amiss; it's only a way I have of appealing
to the gentle reader. Lord! haven't I seen you with the greatest authors
in your hands, and don't I know how ready your attention is to wander
when it's a book that asks for it, instead of a person?
I spoke, a little way back, of my lady's father, the old lord with the
short temper and the long tongue. He had five children in all. Two sons
to begin with; then, after a long time, his wife broke out breeding
again, and the three young ladies came briskly one after the other,
as fast as the nature of things would permit; my mistress, as before
mentioned, being the youngest and best of the three. Of the two sons,
the eldest, Arthur, inherited the title and estates. The second, the
Honourable John, got a fine fortune left him by a relative, and went
into the army.
It's an ill bird, they say, that fouls its own nest. I look on the noble
family of the Herncastles as being my nest; and I shall take it as a
favour if I am not expected to enter into particulars on the subject
of the Honourable John.
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