estigations far beyond
the category of personal attractions, and soar into the lofty atmosphere
of intellectual gifts and graces, bearing along with him, at the same
time, a full knowledge of that public for whom he is proceeding; that
fickle, changeful, fanciful public, who sometimes, out of pure
satiety with what is best, begin to long for what is second-rate.
What consummate skill must be his who thus feels the pulse of fashion,
recognizing in its beat the indications of this or that tendency,
whether "society" soars to the classic "Norma," or descends to
the tawdry vulgarisms of the "Traviata"! No man ever accepted more
implicitly than Mr. Stocmar the adage of "Whatever is, is best." The
judgment of the day with him was absolute. The "world" _a toujours
raison_, was his creed. When that world pronounced for music, he cried,
"Long live Verdi!" when it decided for the ballet, his toast was, "Legs
against the field!" Now, at this precise moment, this same world had
taken a torn for mere good looks,--if it be not heresy to say "mere"
to such a thing as beauty,--and had actually grown a little wearied of
roulades and pirouettes; and so Stocmar had come abroad, to see what the
great slave market of Europe could offer him.

Let us suppose them, therefore, pleasantly meandering along through the
Rhineland, while we turn once more to those whom we have left beyond the
Alps.

CHAPTER XXVII. THE FRAGMENT OF A LETTER

The following brief epistle from Mrs. Morris to her father will save
the reader the tedious task of following the Heathcote family through
an uneventful interval, and at the same time bring him to that place and
period in which we wish to see him. It is dated Hotel d'Italie,
Florence:--

"Dear Papa,--You are not to feel any shock or alarm at the black margin
and wax of this epistle, though its object be to inform you that I am
a widow, Captain Penthony Morris having died some eight months back in
Upper India; but the news has only reached me now. In a word, I have
thought it high time to put an end to this mythical personage, whose
cruel treatment of me I had grown tired of recalling, and, I conclude,
others of listening to. Now, although it may be very hard on you to go
into mourning for the death of one who never lived, yet I must bespeak
your grief, in so far as stationery is concerned, and that you write to
me on the most woe-begone of cream-laid, and with the most sorrow-struck
of seals.

"There