and she is a little too gauche too English
in her habits and ways of thinking; likes to be admired, of course, but
doesn't know yet how to set about getting it. She rather scandalizes
our ladies, but when you know her!--She will have, they say, a hundred
'thousand pounds in her own right! Rose Jocelyn, the daughter of
Sir Franks, and that eccentric Lady Jocelyn. She is with her uncle,
Melville, the celebrated diplomate though, to tell you the truth, we
turn him round our fingers, and spin him as the boys used to do the
cockchafers. I cannot forget our old Fallow field school-life, you see,
my dears. Well, Rose Jocelyn would just suit Evan. She is just of an age
to receive an impression. And I would take care she did. Instance me a
case where I have failed?

'Or there is the Portuguese widow, the Rostral. She's thirty, certainly;
but she possesses millions! Estates all over the kingdom, and the
sweetest creature. But, no. Evan would be out of the way there,
certainly. But--our women are very nice: they have the dearest, sweetest
ways: but I would rather Evan did not marry one of them. And then there
's the religion!'

This was a sore of the Countess's own, and she dropped a tear in coming
across it.

'No, my dears, it shall be Rose Jocelyn!' she concluded: 'I will take
Evan over with me, and see that he has opportunities. It shall be Rose,
and then I can call her mine; for in verity I love the child.'

It is not my part to dispute the Countess's love for Miss Jocelyn; and
I have only to add that Evan, unaware of the soft training he was
to undergo, and the brilliant chance in store for him, offered no
impediment to the proposition that he should journey to Portugal with
his sister (whose subtlest flattery was to tell him that she should not
be ashamed to own him there); and ultimately, furnished with cash for
the trip by the remonstrating brewer, went.

So these Parcae, daughters of the shears, arranged and settled the young
man's fate. His task was to learn the management of his mouth, how to
dress his shoulders properly, and to direct his eyes--rare qualities in
man or woman, I assure you; the management of the mouth being especially
admirable, and correspondingly difficult. These achieved, he was to
place his battery in position, and win the heart and hand of an heiress.

Our comedy opens with his return from Portugal, in company with Miss
Rose, the heiress; the Honourable Melville Jocelyn, the diplomate; and