Page:A Gentleman's Gentleman.djvu/231

 him up his hot water for dinner, he could do nothing but talk about it.

"’Tis beautiful quarters we've found, entirely," said he, "and pretty people. I don't suppose ye've much to say about the money here. Faith, I'm beginning to wish I was the general myself. There's twenty thousand goes with the girl, the count tells me, and the reversion of the place. It's many qualities in a wife I could dispense with at a price like that."

"So she's to marry a general, sir?" asked I.

"No one else," said he, "but General Stolitzoff, that was against Osman Pacha before Plevna. A great man, with as many medals on his coat as I have buttons,"

"He wouldn't be young, sir?" I suggested.

"He would be fifty-five, I'm told, and young at that. It was her father's wish on his death-bed that she should have him; but she leads him the devil's own dance, from all I hear. Truth, she's a very sweet little woman—and then there's the money."

"Is the wedding soon, sir?" I asked.

"It's for to-day week, but we'll have a gay time between. They dance to-morrow when the general comes from Novgorod—lucky devil that he is!"

After this, one did not want to be very clever to learn how the land lay with him. I believe he was in love with Marya Pouzatòv from the start; and it's no wonder if he was. A daintier little thing never stepped out of a drawing-room than the girl I saw go