THE
OLD MANSION.
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jewelry a magnificent cameo ring. He had a low, exquisitely modulated voice, which it was a pleasure to listen to, irrespective of the words he uttered. Few men had equal tact in conversation. He seemed to read character intuitively, and talked accordingly. With Georgiana his conversation was principally of the great people whom he knew abroad. To believe him, he was intimate with Lord John Russell, then prime minister of Great Britain; knew Louis Napoleon, just elected Prince President, intimately; had drunk Johannisberg at Metternich’s own table; had been invited to Russia, on some secret, but important business, of Nicholas; and was possessed of the entree of every court in Europe. As to the aristocracy of England, from the Dukes of Norfolk and Devonshire down, he pretended to be either personally acquainted with them, or to know from reliable hearsay, all about them. He certainly had a fund of anecdote and gossip, especially respecting the female members of the British nobility, which, if not true, was, at least, amusing. I used to hear him discourse, by the hour, on those themes; for they were favorite ones with Georgiana; and, somehow, he always happened to lounge into the parlor, about noon, when everybody except my cousin and myself was either bathing or sleeping. I soon began to suspect that he was a mere adventurer. Georgiana, however, did not think so. More than once we had a warm discussion regarding him.
“I’ve no patience with you, Margaret,” she said, one day. “How could Mr. Despencer know so much about the British nobility, if he was not one of their set? Then his voice. It is the very ideal of a finished English gentleman’s."
“His voice is well modulated, I admit," was my reply. “But I miss the drawl which is said to he conventional in the upper circles of English Society "
“Oh! it’s only the fops that have that," quickly interposed my cousin.
“Possibly. But to go back to his knowledge of the nobility. He has only to study Burke’s
Peerage, of which even you have a copy."
Georgiana was quite indignant. She still insisted, however, that I should continue to play propriety for her, by being in the drawing-room, in the mornings, while she flirted with her admirer; and as the bathing hour had arrived, and everybody was going to the beach, she gave as last look in the mirror at her becoming morning dress, for this conversation happened in her room. Then she lounged downstairs, book in hand.
I was provoked, for I wished to look at the bathers, especially as Rosalie was to go in, with her nurse. I felt my indignation increase, while I listened to the fulsome compliments which her admirer paid to my cousin, particularly when he said that she reminded him of the Lady Clementina Villiers, with whom he had danced at Almacks the preceding winter. I sat nervously knitting my purse, eager to speak my mind; and at last an opportunity offered.
The talk fell on manner, which the gentleman pronounced an
infallible test of high breeding, “and which,” he said, with a bow, “you have in perfection, Miss Elliott.”
Georgiana blushed, simpered, and to cover her confusion, turned her fan toward me, saying, “My cousin, here, goes so far as to assert that one can tell, by the accent, what particular nation and province a stranger belongs to.” Her admirer could do nothing less, at this, than turn toward me. He had seen me, I have no doubt, a score of times; but had never condescended to be aware, by any visible sign, that I existed. Now, however, he smiled blandly, saying,
“Ah! Miss, I fear you are a critic. But let us put your penetration to a test. Come now: in what part of England was I born?"
There was a latent sneer under his assumption of deference and admiration; and I answered bluntly,
“Indeed, sir, you are a sphinx. You don’t talk like a cockney, for instance. And it can’t be said of you, as a pert Oxonian wrote back to his college, the day after he had dined at a great London nabob’s, ‘we had all the delicacies of the season at table, except the letter h.’ Nor have you the silly drawl which I've been told the upper classes have affected till it has grown to be a second habit. Nor the Yorkshire accent, for Mr. Elliott’s coachman is a Yorkshireman; and he doesn’t pronounce as you do. I heard a Gloucestershire man, only the other day; and you‘re not a Gloucestershire man. In fact," said I, looking at him with a sudden suspicion, called up by this discussion, “you talk precisely like any ordinary New Yorker.”
To my surprise, he shot a quick look of inquiry at me, and colored in embarrassment. But it was only for a moment. He forced a laugh and answered gayly,
“Well done. You literary ladies, after all, beat our sex in the delicacy of your compliments. To be an educated American and an educated Englishman, Miss Elliott," he said, bowing to Georgiana, “is to be precisely the same thing."
By one of those strange instincts, which we
