It appears that, some two hundred years later, a Baron Scarswicke was sent as ambassador to an Italian State, and taking the Emerald with him, delivered it into the hands of no less a craftsman than Benvenuto Cellini himself, who wrought for it, with his matchless skill, in gold and enamels, a frame in the shape of a pendant, in which, since that time, it had hung, revolving, so as to show either side at will to the admiring beholder. Such was the great “Scarswicke Emerald,” and it was observed that, while the Duchess of Ribblesdale wore her superb Diamonds on state occasions when she received her acquaintances, she wore the Emerald when she received her kindred and friends. On the death of the Duke, the Duchess had been left sole guardian of their son, for whom, on his leaving Dr. Massenger’s, which he did at the end of the term of Wilfred Manwaring’s expulsion, a commission had been obtained in the Royal Life Guards, and the young Duke lived in handsome chambers in Arlington Street, with a back view over the park. The great, gaunt mansion in St. James’s Square, known as Ribblesdale House, was let until such time as he should come of age. It is scarcely too much to say that there was no finer young fellow in all England than the Duke of Ribblesdale. To begin with, he was extremely good-looking. Of middle height and good figure, he was at once strong and agile. He had bright, open, hazel eyes, brown hair just waving at the end, though it was seldom long enough to allow a curl to form, and a brown, ruddy complexion. Fun and good-humour lurked at the corners of his well-shaped lips, which were shaded by short, well-trimmed moustachios of a sunny brown. Everyone pronounced him a capital fellow all round. His brother-officers, or at all events the better part of them, found him the best and cheeriest of comrades, and the private soldiers of his regiment loved him to a man. Above all, there was not a grain even of affectation about him. Young as he was, he was a thorough _Man_, which in these days of languid, effete, lackadaisical æsthetes, is saying a good deal. Unlike many other young nobles of his class, he did not drink, he did not gamble, he did not bet--except sometimes with ladies, and then he was miserable if he won--and he did not go shares with any millionaire Jew financier in the venal affections of a French actress or Italian ballet-dancer. No one, however, could come near the young Duke at polo; he was a good shot; could hold his own with most competitors by the side of a salmon river; and, lastly, he adored his mother, and was an excellent and attentive son. Not a week elapsed, when he was quartered in London, without his riding down to Hampton Court, or pulling up the river in order to visit the Duchess, who, it need scarcely be said, was wrapt up in her only son. CHAPTER XIX. “THE AUNTS.”