Then the wines were few. Some sherry, with a pedigree
like an Arabian, heightened the flavour of the dish, not interfered with
it; as a toady keeps up the conversation which he does not distract. A
goblet of Graffenburg, with a bouquet like woman's breath, made you,
as you remembered some liquid which it had been your fate to fall
upon, suppose that German wines, like German barons, required some
discrimination, and that hock, like other titles, was not always the
sign of the high nobility of its owner. A glass of claret was the third
grace. But, if we had been there, we should have devoted ourselves
to one of the sparkling sisters; for one wine, like one woman, is
sufficient to interest one's feelings for four-and-twenty hours.
Fickleness we abhor.
'I observed you riding to-day with the gentle Leonora, St. James,' said
Mr. Annesley.
'No! her sister.'
'Indeed! Those girls are uncommonly alike. The fact is, now, that
neither face nor figure depends upon nature.'
'No,' said Lord Squib; 'all that the artists of the present day want is
a model. Let a family provide one handsome sister, and the hideousness
of the others will not prevent them, under good management, from being
mistaken, by the best judges, for the beauty, six times in the same
hour.
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