s they had
played their popular parts without a single blunder. Always in the best
set, never flirting with the wrong man, and never speaking to the wrong
woman, all agreed that the Ladies St. Maurice had fairly won their
coronets. Their sister Caroline was much younger; and although she did
not promise to develop so unblemished a character as themselves, she
was, in default of another sister, to be the Duchess of St. James.

Lady Caroline St. Maurice was nearly of the same age as her cousin, the
young Duke. They had been play-fellows since his emancipation from
the dungeons of Castle Dacre, and every means had been adopted by her
judicious parents to foster and to confirm the kind feelings which had
been first engendered by being partners in the same toys and sharing
the same sports. At eight years old the little Duke was taught to call
Caroline his 'wife;' and as his Grace grew in years, and could better
appreciate the qualities of his sweet and gentle cousin, he was not
disposed to retract the title. When George rejoined the courtly Coronet,
Caroline invariably mingled her tears with those of her sorrowing
spouse; and when the time at length arrived for his departure for Eton,
Caroline knitted him a purse and presented him with a watch-ribbon. At
the last moment she besought her brother, who was two years older, to
watch over him, and soothed the moment of final agony by a promise to
correspond. Had the innocent and soft-hearted girl been acquainted with,
or been able to comprehend, the purposes of her crafty parents, she
could not have adopted means more calculated to accomplish them. The
young Duke kissed her a thousand times, and loved her better than all
the world.

In spite of his private house and his private tutor, his Grace did not
make all the progress in his classical studies which means so calculated
to promote abstraction and to assist acquirement would seem to promise.
The fact is, that as his mind began to unfold itself he found a
perpetual and a more pleasing source of study in the contemplation of
himself. His early initiation in the school of Fitz-pompey had not been
thrown away. He had heard much of nobility, and beauty, and riches,
and fashion, and power; he had seen many individuals highly, though
differently, considered for the relative quantities which they possessed
of these qualities; it appeared to the Duke of St. James that among the
human race he possessed the largest quantity of them all: