’You are forty years younger than I am in experience.  I have passed through every grade of life.  With my own skill and daring I have made my own fortune.  I have been in fourteen pitched battles as a private soldier, and have been twenty-three times on the ground, and never was touched but once; and that was by the sword of a French maitre-d’armes, Whom I killed.  I started in life at seventeen, a beggar, and am now at seven-and-twenty, with twenty thousand guineas.  Do you suppose a man of my courage and energy can’t attain anything that he dares, and that having claims upon the widow, I will not press them?’

This speech was not exactly true to the letter (for I had multiplied my pitched battles, my duels, and my wealth somewhat); but I saw that it made the impression I desired to effect upon the young gentleman’s mind, who listened to my statement with peculiar seriousness, and whom I presently left to digest it.

A couple of days afterwards I called to see him again, when I brought with me some of the letters that had passed between me and my Lady Lyndon.  ‘Here,’ said I, ’look—­I show it you in confidence—­ it is a lock of her Ladyship’s hair; here are her letters signed Calista, and addressed to Eugenio.  Here is a poem, “When Sol bedecks the mead with light, And pallid Cynthia sheds her ray,” addressed by her Ladyship to your humble servant.’

‘Calista!  Eugenio!  Sol bedecks the mead with light?’ cried the young lord.  ’Am I dreaming?  Why, my dear Barry, the widow has sent me the very poem herself!  “Rejoicing in the sunshine bright, Or musing in the evening grey."’

I could not help laughing as he made the quotation.  They were, in fact, the very words my Calista had addressed to me.  And we found, upon comparing letters, that whole passages of eloquence figured in the one correspondence which appeared in the other.  See what it is to be a blue-stocking and have a love of letter-writing!

The young man put down the papers in great perturbation.  ’Well, thank Heaven!’ said he, after a pause of some duration,—­’thank Heaven for a good riddance!  Ah, Mr. Barry, what a woman I might have married had these lucky papers not come in my way!  I thought my Lady Lyndon had a heart, sir, I must confess, though not a very warm one; and that, at least, one could trust her.  But marry her now!  I would as lief send my servant into the street to get me a wife, as put up with such an Ephesian matron as that.’

‘My Lord George,’ said I, ’you little know the world.  Remember what a bad husband Lady Lyndon had, and don’t be astonished that she, on her side, should be indifferent.  Nor has she, I will dare to wager, ever passed beyond the bounds of harmless gallantry, or sinned beyond the composing of a sonnet or a billet-doux.’

‘My wife,’ said the little lord, ’shall write no sonnets or billets-doux; and I’m heartily glad to think I have obtained, in good time, a knowledge of the heartless vixen with whom I thought myself for a moment in love.’