heart, and hearts in every variety of distress and wrong; and by short pithy scraps conveying the most cutting censures on man's inconstancy, or describing the withering lives and touching deaths of "The Lone One," or "The Early Lost," or words to that effect. And there was Colonel Beaufort, "cold, perjured, but adored" (p. 49, Extract Book), actually oblivious of her Christian name, and thinking of Parliament and Newmarket and pheasant shooting, and of anything but falling in love and marrying.
"I say, Helen," he muttered one morning after Lord Eskdale had mentioned that there would be no battue that week, "is there any chance of Teviot coming home soon? It will be monstrous if we are cut out of the pheasants he promised us by some trivial question of peace or war between two Great Powers, as they are pleased to call themselves. Do you know when he is coming back?"
"He seemed," said Helen, "in his last letter to think that his business at Lisbon might now easily be finished by others on the spot, and that he should come back to take possession of his new office."
"This is pleasing news for all of us," said Colonel Stuart, who was staying at the Castle, "and especially for you. Lady Teviot. Lady Portmore seemed sure of his return, for she asked me to meet him at Portsdown on the loth, but, with every respect for our dear busy friend, I found 'metal more attractive' here than in one of her fussy crowds."
"Lady Portmore must be in ecstasies," said Lady Walden, "at the triumph of what she calls her party."
"Well, I am not so sure," said Colonel Stuart. "Mr. G. has failed to find out Portmore's merits, and my lady is rather wrathful at not having the offer of even a household place; and I hear she is beginning to make out that Mr. Sheffield is a distant cousin of hers, and that he leads the Opposition with great talent."
