Next afternoon the announcement by Skepsey of the Hon. Dudley Sowerby, surprised Victor’s eyebrows at least, and caused him genially to review the visit of Lady Grace.

Whether or not Colney Durance drew his description of a sunken nobility from the ‘sick falcon’ distinguishing the handsome features of Mr. Sowerby, that beaked invalid was particularly noticeable to Victor during the statement of his case, although the young gentleman was far from being one, in Colney’s words, to enliven the condition of domestic fowl with an hereditary turn for ‘preying’; eminently the reverse; he was of good moral repute, a worker, a commendable citizen.  But there was the obligation upon him to speak—­it is expected in such cases, if only as a formality—­of his ‘love’:  hard to do even in view and near to the damsel’s reddening cheeks:  it perplexed him.  He dropped a veil on the bashful topic; his tone was the same as when he reverted to the material points; his present income, his position in the great Bank of Shotts and Co., his prospects, the health of the heir to the Cantor earldom.  He considered that he spoke to a member of the City merchants, whose preference for the plain positive, upon the question of an alliance between families by marriage, lends them for once a resemblance to lords.  When a person is not read by character, the position or profession is called on to supply raised print for the finger-ends to spell.

Hard on poor Fredi! was Victor’s thought behind the smile he bent on this bald Cupid.  She deserved a more poetical lover!  His paternal sympathies for the girl besought in love, revived his past feelings as a wooer; nothing but a dread of the influence of Mr. Barmby’s toned eloquence upon the girl, after her listening to Dudley Sowerby’s addresses, checked his contempt for the latter.  He could not despise the suitor he sided with against another and seemingly now a more dangerous.  Unable quite to repress the sentiment, he proceeded immediately to put it to his uses.  For we have no need to be scrupulously formal and precise in the exposition of circumstances to a fellow who may thank the stars if such a girl condescends to give him a hearing.  He had this idea through the conception of his girl’s generosity.  And furthermore, the cognizant eye of a Lucretian Alma Mater having seat so strongly in Victor, demanded as a right an effusion of the promising amorous graces on the part of the acceptable applicant to the post of husband of that peerless.  These being absent, evidently non-existent, it seemed sufficient for the present, after the fashion of the young gentleman, to capitulate the few material matters briefly.