Three daughters and a son were left to the world by Mr. Melchisedec.  Love, well endowed, had already claimed to provide for the daughters:  first in the shape of a lean Marine subaltern, whose days of obscuration had now passed, and who had come to be a major of that corps:  secondly, presenting his addresses as a brewer of distinction:  thirdly, and for a climax, as a Portuguese Count:  no other than the Senor Silva Diaz, Conde de Saldar:  and this match did seem a far more resplendent one than that of the two elder sisters with Major Strike and Mr. Andrew Cogglesby.  But the rays of neither fell visibly on Lymport.  These escaped Eurydices never reappeared, after being once fairly caught away from the gloomy realms of Dis, otherwise Trade.  All three persons of singular beauty, a certain refinement, some Port, and some Presence, hereditarily combined, they feared the clutch of that fell king, and performed the widest possible circles around him.  Not one of them ever approached the house of her parents.  They were dutiful and loving children, and wrote frequently; but of course they had to consider their new position, and their husbands, and their husbands’ families, and the world, and what it would say, if to it the dreaded rumour should penetrate!  Lymport gossips, as numerous as in other parts, declared that the foreign nobleman would rave in an extraordinary manner, and do things after the outlandish fashion of his country:  for from him, there was no doubt, the shop had been most successfully veiled, and he knew not of Pluto’s close relationship to his lovely spouse.

The marriages had happened in this way.  Balls are given in country towns, where the graces of tradesmen’s daughters may be witnessed and admired at leisure by other than tradesmen:  by occasional country gentlemen of the neighbourhood, with light minds:  and also by small officers:  subalterns wishing to do tender execution upon man’s fair enemy, and to find a distraction for their legs.  The classes of our social fabric have, here and there, slight connecting links, and provincial public balls are one of these.  They are dangerous, for Cupid is no respecter of class-prejudice; and if you are the son of a retired tea-merchant, or of a village doctor, or of a half-pay captain, or of anything superior, and visit one of them, you are as likely to receive his shot as any shopboy.  Even masquerading lords at such places, have been known to be slain outright; and although Society allows to its highest and dearest to save the honour of their families, and heal their anguish, by indecorous compromise, you, if you are a trifle below that mark, must not expect it.  You must absolutely give yourself for what you hope to get.  Dreadful as it sounds to philosophic ears, you must marry.  This, having danced with Caroline Harrington, the gallant Lieutenant Strike determined to do.  Nor, when he became aware of her father’s occupation, did he shrink from his resolve.  After a month’s hard courtship,