'
'Except when you visited us at Easter. We regretted our loss.'
'Ah! yes! except that,' exclaimed the Duke, remembering his jaeger's
call; 'but that goes for nothing. I of course saw very little.'
'Yet, I assure you, you made a great impression. So eminent a personage,
of course, observes less than he himself is observed. We had a graphical
description of you on our return, and a very accurate one, too; for I
recognised your Grace to-night merely from the report of your visit.'
The Duke shot a shrewd glance at his companion's face, but it betrayed
no indication of badinage, and so, rather puzzled, he thought it best to
put up with the parallel between himself and his servant. But Miss Dacre
did not quit this agreeable subject with all that promptitude which he
fondly anticipated.
'Poor Lord St. Jerome,' said she, 'who is really the most unaffected
person I know, has been complaining most bitterly of his deficiency in
the _air noble_. He is mistaken for a groom perpetually; and once, he
says, had a _douceur_ presented to him in his character of an ostler.
Your Grace must be proud of your advantage over him.
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