Melchisedec.
Love, well endowed, had already claimed to provide for the daughters:
first in the shape of a lean Marine subaltern, whose days of obscuration
had now passed, and who had come to be a major of that corps: secondly,
presenting his addresses as a brewer of distinction: thirdly, and for a
climax, as a Portuguese Count: no other than the Senor Silva Diaz, Conde
de Saldar: and this match did seem a far more resplendent one than that
of the two elder sisters with Major Strike and Mr. Andrew Cogglesby.
But the rays of neither fell visibly on Lymport. These escaped Eurydices
never reappeared, after being once fairly caught away from the gloomy
realms of Dis, otherwise Trade. All three persons of singular beauty, a
certain refinement, some Port, and some Presence, hereditarily combined,
they feared the clutch of that fell king, and performed the widest
possible circles around him. Not one of them ever approached the
house of her parents. They were dutiful and loving children, and wrote
frequently; but of course they had to consider their new position, and
their husbands, and their husbands' families, and the world, and what
it would say, if to it the dreaded rumour should penetrate! Lymport
gossips, as numerous as in other parts, declared that the foreign
nobleman would rave in an extraordinary manner, and do things after the
outlandish fashion of his country: for from him, there was no doubt, the
shop had been most successfully veiled, and he knew not of Pluto's close
relationship to his lovely spouse.

The marriages had happened in this way. Balls are given in country
towns, where the graces of tradesmen's daughters may be witnessed
and admired at leisure by other than tradesmen: by occasional country
gentlemen of the neighbourhood, with light minds: and also by small
officers: subalterns wishing to do tender execution upon man's fair
enemy, and to find a distraction for their legs. The classes of our
social fabric have, here and there, slight connecting links, and
provincial public balls are one of these. They are dangerous, for Cupid
is no respecter of class-prejudice; and if you are the son of a retired
tea-merchant, or of a village doctor, or of a half-pay captain, or of
anything superior, and visit one of them, you are as likely to receive
his shot as any shopboy. Even masquerading lords at such places, have
been known to be slain outright; and although Society allows to its
highest and dearest to save the h