 and distasteful his former pursuits and friendships
appeared to him! He had not been, up to the present time, much accustomed to the
society of females of his own rank in life. When he spoke of such, he called
them modest women. That virtue, which let us hope they possessed, had not
hitherto compensated to Mr. Foker for the absence of more lively qualities which
most of his own relatives did not enjoy, and which he found in Mesdemoiselles
the ladies of the theatre. His mother, though good and tender, did not amuse her
boy; his cousins, the daughters of his maternal uncle, the respectable Earl of
Rosherville, wearied him beyond measure. One was blue, and a geologist; one was
a horsewoman, and smoked cigars; one was exceedingly Low Church, and had the
most heterodox views on religious matters; at least, so the other said, who was
herself of the very Highest Church faction, and made the cupboard in her room
into an oratory, and fasted on every Friday in the year. Their paternal house of
Drummington Foker could very seldom be got to visit. He swore he had rather go
on the treadmill than stay there. He was not much beloved by the inhabitants.
Lord Erith, Lord Rosherville's heir, considered his cousin a low person, of
deplorably vulgar habits and manners; while Foker, and with equal reason, voted
Erith a prig and a dullard, the nightcap of the House of Commons, the Speaker's
opprobrium, the dreariest of philanthropic spouters. Nor could George Robert,
Earl of Gravesend and Rosherville, ever forget that on one evening, when he
condescended to play at billiards with his nephew, that young gentleman poked
his Lordship in the side with his cue, and said, »Well, old cock, I've seen many
a bad stroke in my life, but I never saw such a bad one as that there.« He
played the game out with angelic sweetness of temper - for Harry was his guest
as well as his nephew - but he was nearly having a fit in the night; and he kept
to his own rooms until young Harry quitted Drummington on his return to
Oxbridge, where the interesting youth was finishing his education at the time
when the occurrence took place. It was an awful blow to the venerable earl; the
circumstance was never alluded to in the family; he shunned Foker whenever he
came to see them in London or in the country, and could hardly be brought to
gasp out a »How d'ye do?« to the young blasphemer. But he
