Page:Lady Anne Granard 3.pdf/127

Rh happen, in time, living in the country, and waiting on his grandfather, and all that, may induce Lord Meersbrook, who has nothing of the man of fashion about him, but the manners and person, to think of her; but for you, dear Helen, my good, patient girl, I do augur a higher destiny—I do, indeed!" Helen hoped the grave would be her destiny, if Georgiana married Lord Meersbrook, but she said nothing. "I will lend you my pearl necklace with the diamond drops (for I cannot wear it myself); and Fanchette shall do your hair, and, if you continue pale, give you the least possible tint of rouge, which has always a good effect on the eyes, and is often required by eyes like yours, though they are, when you are in high health, 'deeply, darkly, beautifully blue,' as Lord Byron says; but few people give him his title—he has to thank his poetry for that. Every low fellow says Byron this, and Byron that, which is not very agreeable to him by this time, I'll be bound (provided he knows it); for he was as proud of his ancestry as a nobleman ought to be, and mistook himself prodigiously when he preferred wit to nobility—wit, the most evanescent of all things. Poor man! I remember flirting with him a whole evening for the éclat of the thing. I was the fashion that winter as much as himself, so the thing appeared selon les règles."