And other considerations did intervene. A Duke, and a young Duke, is
an important personage; but he must still be introduced. Even our
hero might make a bad tack on his first cruise. Almost as important
personages have committed the same blunder. Talk of Catholic
emancipation! O! thou Imperial Parliament, emancipate the forlorn
wretches who have got into a bad set! Even thy omnipotence must fail
there!
Now, the Countess of Fitz-pompey was a brilliant of the first water.
Under no better auspices could the Duke of St. James bound upon the
stage. No man in town could arrange his club affairs for him with
greater celerity and greater tact than the Earl; and the married
daughters were as much like their mother as a pair of diamond ear-rings
are like a diamond necklace.
The Duke, therefore, though he did not choose to get caged in
Fitz-pompey House, sent his page, Spiridion, to the Countess, on a
special embassy of announcement on the evening of his arrival, and on
the following morning his Grace himself made his appearance at an early
hour.
Lord Fitz-pompey, who was as consummate a judge of men and manners as he
was an indifferent speculator on affairs, and who was almost as finished
a man of the world as he was an imperfect philosopher, soon perceived
that considerable changes had taken place in the ideas as well as in the
exterior of his nephew.
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